My day as director of housekeeping usually starts the night before when I go over my Outlook schedule for the next day to make sure that everything that I wanted to accomplish the next day or week is covered. It’s important that I don’t overload my schedule and set myself too many tasks to accomplish. I try to stretch my goals and get as much done as possible, but if it’s unreasonable, I’ll only feel frustrated the next day when things don’t go as planned.
Now if you were ever working in operations before you know that things can and will change all the time, and fires can come up all day long that require you to put them out quickly and move your schedule around… and that’s expected! It’s fine to make changes to your plan, you just need to have one in the first place to make sure that you don’t lose focus and get off track.
I’ll try to get to work early between 6.30 am and 7 am before most people come in to get started and well-prepared for the day. I like to stay ahead of the game and being prepared is half the work.
Talking to your employees and making sure that they have all the information and resources that they need for the day is most important. This means that I’ll have to attend and conduct about six meetings with my employees and other departments only before 10 am. This is a huge investment in time and effort because you want to make sure that you’re prepared for the meetings and that you’ll follow-up on them as well (otherwise it’s just talk and no action), but it’s paramount for the success of your department. Communication amongst your employees and teams is the key to a shared vision and success.
I have a lot of projects that I am working on simultaneously and I try to allocate some time every day to make sure that we stay on track with them and move along. Housekeeping covers a great variety of responsibilities within the hotel, so I’ll never get bored and always learn something new along the way as well. Depending on the current staffing levels of my teams, I’ll have interviews as well. Hiring the right people and training them is fundamental for your success.
The most important exercise of my day is always to walk all the areas of the hotel, public and back of the house, and of course guest corridors and rooms. Spending time with your teams is everything. I would inspect rooms with room and house attendants, and butlers and do role plays with butlers on their guest greeting.
This will give you the opportunity to connect with them, stay in touch with what’s going on, and to give feedback to their performance. This is where I feel that I really make an impact and really make an improvement for the next day. While I have plenty of priorities and everything needs to get done, this is where I feel that I can make the most impact – employee feedback and training. Any day that I would find enough time to do this, I would walk home with a feeling of accomplishment.
I’ll have more meetings throughout the day covering our payroll and finances, the pass-on from the morning to the evening shift, as well as going over the guest arrivals for the next day.
I have an open door policy, so a lot of things come up last-minute, and I invest a lot of time listening to my employees to what’s important to them. While this may seem like a lot of time that I could spend better doing something else, my position is not about what I am doing myself, it’s about what the entire team can accomplish together. The power of your employees being fully engaged and all pulling in the same direction is incredible. So spending time just listening to your employees and giving advise and feedback where necessary, is an investment in your team.
Most of my days will end after 6 pm to 7 pm, but I always strive to be home to have dinner with my wife and spend time with her. This is where I get most of my motivation and energy from. She helps me balancing out all the stress and pressure, as well as focusing on what matters most.
Hospitality is a people’s business, and your success as director of housekeeping all depends on your employees. It’s not about how good you are at certain tasks or what you can do as an individual, but what the team is encouraged and motivated to do.
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