In any hotel be it a local or a five-star hotel, organization structure is a fundamental component of its existence. A serviceable organizational structure provides a chain of command with one or two executives managing the whole process. After that, the organization is then broken down into subgroups (functional groups). Some examples of these functional groups include concierge, food and beverage service, front desk services, and lastly, housekeeping. This paper shall, therefore, discuss the organizational structure in housekeeping management.
The housekeeping department of any hotel or lodging property accounts for the business’s main work expense. Consequently, the precise structure of the housekeeping department varies depending on the size of the organization; a majority of these hotels have the same overall housekeeping organizational structure (O’Neill, 2016). The layout of the housekeeping department is the physical differentiation of zones in the department. If this layout is well established and planned, it ensures the smooth and efficient operation of the departments. However, the layout depends on the size of the hotel as well as the somatic space limitations. In normal cases, the layout is decided by the executive housekeeper at the facility development phase in setting up the hotel.
The organizational structure of any housing department is discussed below:
The Executive Housekeeper
Just as in all organizational departments, the housekeepers will be able to provide optimal results if they are governed by some form of articulate management from the executive housekeeper. Therefore, the executive housekeeper has various responsibilities that include managing the team of housekeepers while informing them of the various daily cleaning responsibilities. He or she also identifies new cleaning opportunities and variations that should be made in the existing protocol, orders supplies addresses issues and concerns brought forward by the housekeeping team, and finally, plans the housekeeping budget. It is important to know that the executive housekeeper reports to the General Manager or rooms division managers. Where there are large establishments, the assistant housekeepers may help the executive housekeepers.
Supervisors
For large hotel organizations, there exist general supervisors who are responsible for managing each area which requires cleaning. An example, the floor supervisors have the responsibility of ensuring that the guest room attendants have all the equipment required to clean the rooms properly. Also, they counter to check the rooms after they have been cleaned for quality assurance. On the other hand, the public region supervisor also undertakes the same quality assurance inspections, but in this case, they inspect the lobbies, public restrooms, and hallways. The laundry managers on their end ensure the laundry helpers wash, dry, fold, and place various clothing items properly and in a well-timed mode (Van der Voort, 2014). Larger and international institutions have uniform supervisors whose responsibility is to ensure that linens, aprons, and uniforms in the hotel are not torn, stained, or ripped while instructing linen room staff on where to store them. Finally, there are control desk supervisors whose chief responsibility is to ensure that the mini-fridges or the bars in all the guest rooms are effectively stocked.
Guest Room Attendants
The biggest general responsibility that the housekeeper has is to clean all the guest rooms in use on a daily basis. All of this must be done in a timely and efficient manner, as the rooms must either be cleaned before the visitors return to sleep at night or be prepared for the next slot of guests before they arrive. The staff assigned to this task have to be able to clean the rooms, stock the bathing rooms with towels and toiletries, and change the linens within less than half an hour. Other workers offer support by collecting and bagging the dirty linens and also refilling the housekeeping carts. All the support positions and guest room cleaners, report straight to the executive housekeeper.
Laundry And Linen Room Attendants
In lodging hotels, they have a group of staff that are dedicated wholly to linen, uniforms, aprons, napkins, and all other items that are to be washed and cleaned on a day-to-day basis. The majority of the employees in this department operate and attend to the various washers and dryers together with the folding and pressing machines. The other group of employees works as runners whose work is to collect dirty laundry or pack clean laundry (van Diepen et al. 2017). In special cases, a tailor is usually employed onsite to fix torn linens and clothes or remake them into rags and aprons. The laundry employees report to two people: the uniform and laundry managers or to the executive housekeeper.
Public Space Attendants
Other than cleaning the guest rooms, the housekeeping department also has the responsibility of cleaning all the public areas within the hotel, including the meeting room, bathroom, lobby, pool area, and exercise rooms. All the attendants in charge of cleaning the public space report either to the executive housekeeper or the public area supervisor.
Mini-Bar Attendants
At times, the guest room staff take care of stocking the mini-bar, hectic lodging establishments with large space often take a step of employing devoted mini-bar helpers. The tasks assigned to these employees is to ensure that all the mini-bars or mini-fridges in all the guest rooms are always stocked with alcoholic drinks and water that the visitors can take for free. In addition, these employees also ensure that there is an ice bucket, coffee and coffee maker, drinking glasses, and tea in all the guest rooms. This category of workers reports to the executive housekeeper or to the control desk supervisor.
In conclusion, in order for one to understand the organizational structure of the housekeeping department, the organizational chart is a key element. The organizational chart clearly specifies the line of control for each position in the hierarchy of the organizational structure of the housekeeping department. In other words, it is a methodical representation which apprehends the work relations amongst various positions within a founding. It is mostly used to demonstrate the lines of authority and the division of responsibility in the whole business.
Hence, the main purpose of the organizational chart is to provide all the staff within the organization with clear guidance on these aspects: official reporting relationships, lines of authority, and the communication channels governing the departments’ flow of work. Furthermore, the chart offers logical direction of orders, and also protects the staff from excess abuse of power by their superiors. Therefore, it is important for any business entity to contain an organizational chart, and this is because it improves the efficiency of processes by providing clarity to employees at all levels within an organization. Through the knowledge of who is liable for what and who is in charge of the other, the housekeeping department will surely work effectively and efficiently, thus ensuring yield.
Reference
O’Neill, J. W., Beauvais, L. L., & Scholl, R. W. (2016). The use of organizational culture and structure to guide strategic behaviour: An information processing perspective. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2).
Van der Voet, J. (2014). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal, 32(3), 373-382.
van Diepen, S., Fordyce, C. B., Wegermann, Z. K., Granger, C. B., Stebbins, A., Morrow, D. A., … & Katz, J. N. (2017). Organizational Structure, Staffing, Resources, and Educational Initiatives in Cardiac Intensive Care Units in the United States: An American Heart Association Acute Cardiac Care Committee and American College of Cardiology Critical Care Cardiology Working Group Cross-Sectional Survey. Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, 10(8), e003864.
