Experts divided over outsourcing housekeeping
Housekeepers remained generally divided over outsourcing tasks in their department to third party companies.
Generally housekeepers are in charge of the cleanliness and hygiene of public areas, the lobby, along with outdoor areas such as gardens, facades and guest entry points into the hotel.
However, one of the main tasks under a housekeeper’s portfolio is ensuring the rooms and beds are up to a hotel’s benchmark. So, what tasks are hoteliers outsourcing then?
“We outsource the window washing of our hotel, and the gardening as well,” said Sheeja Sasidharan, housekeeping manager, Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek.
However, Lakmal Mawella, executive housekeeper of the soon-to-open Address Boulevard Hotel in Dubai said: “Ensuring a level of consistent performance from the outsourced employees is a big challenge. Ultimately, they are not our employees, and we cannot control all aspects of the job.”
Moscow Hotel executive housekeeper Jameen Ali said that it is important to take the outsourced workforce under their wing. “We have to ensure that we include them in our briefings and training,” Ali said.
Rita Pokharel of Vida hotels and resorts shared a similar sentiment and said the onus lies on us to ensure the outsourced colleagues are on track.
However, in the open panel, a few experts argued whether any housekeeping tasks need to be outsourced in the first place. A few experts believed that at least the maintenance and cleanliness of public areas needs to be outsourced as the hotel’s housekeepers can then focus on their prime responsibility, which is taking care of the rooms.
Outsourcing housekeeper’s tasks would also help maintain revenue as staff turnover tends to be high in the department, which costs the hotel.
Atlantis The Palm Dubai director of housekeeping operations Khadija Ait-Raiss shared a practice she follows at her property. “At our hotel, the outsourced housekeeping staff works throughout the night, in the public areas. And the in-house staff work during the day, in that way we manage to get the two shifts synchronised,” Ait-Raiss said.