Maintaining high service standards day after day is easy with effective improvement training. Share on XHaving a good housekeeping team is one thing, keeping the standards at the highest level at all time is a completely different situation. Especially when people work in a job a long time, they can become complacent and standards can drop. Having a housekeeping improvement plan and system to keep everything in check is vital.
Regular training should be provided, giving your housekeepers an opportunity to feedback will give you an insight into how things are really going. Regular checkups of all cleaning equipment will catch issues in time. Surveillance is a great way to troubleshoot issues. And finally, have a black book of contacts to outsource issues that cannot be dealt with internally.
Tips for an effective Housekeeping Improvement Plan
There are several ways to improve your housekeeping team. And to keep the standards high. The below overview gives a complete plan of what to focus on. And what to look out for.
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Training is key
This is absolutely vital in improving any housekeeping team, big or small, commercial or in private households. Regular training must be provided to keep everyone’s skills up to date. When people are working in the same role for many years, the risk is of them becoming complacent in their tasks and training gives them a refresher of techniques and newfound inspiration to do things slightly differently, and improve. For more junior members of staff training is vital to learn new skills, tackle issues they might have been struggling with and practise skills they are not too confident in yet. Overall, training is good for team morale. It gives the housekeeper a sense of worthiness. Knowing you are investing time and money in training. It is also a great opportunity to have some team building. For members of staff to work together in a non-work environment. To have a bit of fun and get to know each other more.
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Utilise the knowledge present
Do you know the exact background, interests and skills of all the employees? It is time to find out! By having individual chats find out about their previous roles, qualifications and training they undertook previously and passions. There might be someone in your team who is a keen florist in her spare time. But is not currently utilising all this knowledge as she is only cleaning certain areas – for example. Someone like that would be perfect being in charge of flower arranging in different rooms. And perhaps even sourcing and designing beautiful flower arrangements. It will save you having to outsource! Same goes for management potential. There might be members of the team that have natural leadership skills. And the ability to make people listen to them. If they have never been given the opportunity, this might not come out instantly. But they could shine as Housekeeping Manager, or training the junior members of staff. Discover leadership potential by having the conversation. But also by setting people different light managerial or training tasks and review how they get on – and if they like it, too.
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Review and update equipment
You can be the most amazingly skilled housekeeper or cleaner. But if your cleaning equipment is not up to date there is nothing that can be done. Firstly, is it vital to regularly service and check all cleaning equipment. This goes from making sure all the vacuum cleaners are functioning properly and are being serviced. To making sure the cloths are kept clean and in good enough condition to still be used. Some pieces of equipment might last for many years. However, some – like brushes, cloths and sponges will need regular replacement to keep it hygienic. Secondly, stay up to date on new developments in cleaning equipment. New vacuum technologies might be worth investing in. As well as new mop systems. When the equipment is at its best, your team will be at its best giving the best possible results.
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Surveillance
Surveilling your staff, whether done anonymously or by yourself, is a great way of troubleshooting any issues you might not become aware of during training or meetings. It gives you the opportunity to have an insight in day to day practise. And review in real-time where issues might arise or problems occur. There might be a lack of staff. Meaning you will see people overworked, struggling to finish all the tasks in time. Time scheduling might not be realistic. With too short a time set to finish one task/room. Or you might see faulty or substandard equipment here. Which will prohibit housekeepers to do a decent job. You can either announce to your staff that you/someone will be shadowing them for the day. Or you can opt for a ‘secret shopper’ who anonymously will make notes when seeing housekeeping at work where possible.
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Outsource where needs be
Knowing your limits is important, and vital to the successful running of the department. There are specialist companies for a reason. As they simply will be able to have better skills and equipment to get a job done. Much quicker and better than your housekeepers could do it. Think of carpet cleaning, for example. Sure, any good housekeeper will know how to remove stains and do a daily clean of carpets. But they will require deep cleaning regularly too. Specialist equipment is needed to achieve this. The same counts for oven cleaning, window cleaning and garden/grounds maintenance. Your housekeeper will be able to do the day to day tasks. But make sure specialist tasks are outsourced where suited.
How can Polo & Tweed help?
Polo & Tweed are leading in not only providing the highest-end housekeeping training. But also in troubleshooting any issues, staffing solutions and management of departments. Polo & Tweed offer a one stop shop perfect for when you are not completely sure if you or your team needs any training, or whether you might need new members of staff. Polo & Tweed would take you through a focused consultation phase which can consist of surveillance days, face to face or online meetings, recommendations and regular guidance, as well as recruitments solutions.
The surveillance days are a great way to understand any underlying issues. A detailed report will be presented to you after the surveillance day – conducted by our highly experienced industry professionals – with an overview of any issues, and specific recommendations on how to resolve these. This can be booked in as a one off, or as a regular occurrence to make sure you stay up to date on everything that is going on. It will save you lots of time in troubleshooting yourself, so you can actually focus on your day to day running of the department.
If you think you or your department might need training, guidance or a change of staff, why not get in touch us the team here. We will be able to give you an overview of all services and give you an idea of what might be needed after a first phonecall. We ook forward to hearing from you!