case study about housekeeping

Transformative Housekeeping: A Case Study of The Boulders Hotel

Table of Contents

Have you ever stayed at a hotel and wondered what goes on behind the scenes to make your experience seamless and comfortable? The answer often lies within the bustling hive of activity known as housekeeping . In this blog, we’re taking an inside look at an innovative model of housekeeping operations through the lens of “The Boulders – A Prime Hotel in USA,” where a transformative approach to teamwork has revolutionized the guest experience.

The innovative approach to housekeeping at The Boulders

Breaking away from traditional housekeeping structures, The Boulders Hotel introduced a model that pivots on the formation of self-directed, multicultural teams. These teams, composed of individuals from diverse backgrounds, bring a range of experiences and perspectives to their roles. But what exactly does it mean to have a self-directed team in housekeeping?

Characteristics of self-directed teams

• Autonomy : Team members have the discretion to make decisions on day-to-day operations without constant oversight.
• Collaboration : A focus on working together to achieve common goals and solve problems as they arise.
• Multicultural dynamics : Embracing cultural diversity as a strength that contributes to innovative problem-solving and vibrant team dynamics.

The benefits of teamwork in housekeeping

The Boulders Hotel has seen remarkable improvements in efficiency and guest satisfaction since introducing their team-based approach. Let’s explore the multi-faceted benefits this model has brought to the hotel.

Boosting efficiency and quality

Efficiency isn’t just about speed; it’s also about the quality of work. By pooling their skills and knowledge, housekeeping teams at The Boulders can divide tasks in a way that plays to each member’s strengths, leading to faster completion without compromising on quality.

Enhancing guest satisfaction

When housekeeping operates like a well-oiled machine, guests take notice. Rooms are cleaner, requests are fulfilled quicker, and the overall atmosphere of the hotel improves. Happy teams lead to happy guests, and the numbers speak for themselves—guest satisfaction ratings have soared.

Improving employee morale

A sense of belonging and contribution to a team can drastically improve how employees feel about their work. At The Boulders, team members are empowered, have a clearer understanding of their contribution to the hotel’s success, and report higher job satisfaction.

Challenges of transitioning to a team-based approach

Change is never easy, and The Boulders faced its fair share of obstacles in implementing this new approach to housekeeping.

Overcoming resistance to change

Some employees were accustomed to the old way of doing things and hesitant to adopt a new style of working. It took time, communication, and demonstrated success to win over skeptics.

Adjusting to new roles

Moving to a self-directed team model meant that individuals had to take on more responsibility and learn to trust their judgment. This was a significant shift from relying on direct instructions from supervisors.

Navigating multicultural dynamics

Cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings or clashes in working styles. The Boulders invested in cultural sensitivity training to help teams appreciate and leverage their diversity.

The importance of training in facilitating change

Training played a pivotal role in the successful transition to team-based housekeeping. Let’s delve into the types of training that made a difference.

Developing leadership skills

With self-direction comes a need for leadership within the team. The Boulders provided training to help team members lead without formal authority, encouraging cooperation and shared decision-making.

Building team dynamics

Team-building exercises and workshops helped to forge strong bonds among team members, establishing trust and a shared commitment to excellence.

Enhancing communication

Effective communication is the backbone of any successful team. Training in this area ensured that team members could express ideas, concerns, and solutions effectively, regardless of cultural or language barriers.

The potential for operational effectiveness and an inclusive work environment

The Boulders’ housekeeping model has not only enhanced operational effectiveness but has also fostered a more inclusive work environment.

Benefits to operational effectiveness

With teams working in concert, operational bottlenecks have decreased, resources are utilized more efficiently, and the hotel has seen a reduction in wasted time and effort.

Fostering inclusivity

The multicultural aspect of the teams at The Boulders has created an environment where diversity is not only accepted but celebrated. This inclusivity has rippled out to improve guest experiences as well, with guests from various backgrounds feeling more at home.

The case study of The Boulders Hotel provides a compelling narrative of how innovation in housekeeping can lead to significant improvements in efficiency, satisfaction, and morale. By embracing a self-directed, team-based approach and investing in training, The Boulders has set a new standard for operational excellence in the hospitality industry.

What do you think? Could this model be the future of housekeeping in hotels worldwide? How might the principles of teamwork and diversity apply to other industries? Share your thoughts on how embracing change can lead to transformative results.

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Tourism Operations

1 Understanding Tourism Operations (Inter-Sectoral Linkages)

• Tourism Operations: A Historical Profile
• Inter-Sectoral Linkages
• Elements in Tourism Operations

2 Respecting Resident Concerns in Tourism Operations and Development

• Concern at Planning Stage
• Concern at Post-Planning/Implementation Stage
• Tourism Development Benefits to Residents vis-à-vis Economy

3 Quality Management and Customer Care

• Concept of Quality Management in Services
• Quality Management in Tourism
• Caring for Customers in Tourism

4 Managing Tour Operations – I (In-House Operations and Use of Technology)

• Setting Up A Tour Operation Company
• Management of In-house Operations
• Use of Technology

5 Managing Tour Operations – II (Field Operations – Inbound and Outbound)

• Developing and Managing Linkages with Principal Suppliers
• Managing Recruitment and Trained Manpower
• Inbound Tour Operations
• Outbound Tour Operations
• Managing the Marketing of Tours Packages

6 Managing Tour Operations – III (Managing Distribution)

• Role of Distribution in Exchange Process
• Selling in Tourism Through Distribution Chains
• Logistics in Tour Operations
• Managing Distribution System in Tour Operations

7 Managing a Tour- Escort

• Managing Escort Services
• Considerations for An Escort
• The Preparations
• Managing Special Situations

8 Managing Travel Agency Operations – I (Managing Internal Operations, Technology)

• Travel Agency Operations
• Departmentalisation of an Agency
• Managerial Responsibilities
• Sources of Revenue
• Operational Departmentalisation of an Agency (In-House)

9 Managing Travel Agency Operations – II (Dealing with Principal Suppliers)

• Relationship with Principal Suppliers
• Dealing with Air Travel Providers
• Dealing with Tourist Transport Suppliers
• Relationship with Accommodation Suppliers
• Challenges for Relationship

10 Managing Travel Agency Operations – III (Publicity and Promotions)

• Issues Related to Sales
• Promotional Issues
• Marketing Communications
• Public Relations

11 Managing Hospitality Operations- Organised Sector

• Types of Accommodation in the Organised Sector
• Policy Formulation and Strategies
• Financial Management
• Product Design
• Marketing Management
• Safety and Security
• Organisation of a Hotel

12 Managing Front Office Operations

• Front Office Functions
• Front Office: Organisational Structure
• The Reservation Office
• Check-in Process
• Front Office Accounting
• Check-out Process
• The Electronic Front Office (EFO)

13 Managing House Keeping Operations

• Organisation of Housekeeping Department
• Layout of the Housekeeping Department
• Functions of the Housekeeping Department
• Management of Guest Amenities
• The Boulders – A Prime Hotel in USA: A Case Study

14 Managing Food and Beverages Operations

• Food and Beverage Operations
• Assessment of Market and Consumer Needs
• Food Service Operation System
• Managing Food Service Operations
• Cost Control
• Computer Applications in Food and Beverage Services

15 Managing Hospitality Operations- Unorganised Sector

• Types of Hospitality Organisations
• Features of Services Rendered in This Sector
• Positioning and Promotion in Unorganised Sector
• Pricing Strategies of Unorganised Sector

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Human Resources in the Housekeeping Department: A Case Study

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Abstract: This study is focussed on the human resources of the housekeeping department in the hospitality industry. Our aim is to understand what are the main characteristics and aspects of the housekeeping department that affect the most their workers. The main goal is to acknowledge their feelings, difficulties, needs and main battles during their working hours. Their motivation and wellbeing have a major impact in their productivity and efficiency, that consequently impacts quality of service, guest's satisfaction, and company profitability. Having this kind of information, provides to the companies the opportunity to define better operative strategies and human resources programmes. Although its importance, the deserved attention is not often given to this department, even academically there is not so much information. In this sense, a qualitative study was done, through a semistructured interview with 5 employees from different hierarchical levels related to the department. The results of this study suggest that, the lack of a leader in the department impacts the quality of service and the working environment among employees. Even though housekeepers recognize their importance, they feel that they are not given the material and conditions to provide a better performance with less sacrifice. It is a very demanding department, physically and psychologically, which impacts workers motivation and health.

Keywords: Human Resources; Housekeeping; Continuous improvement; Hospitality

1. Introduction

The housekeeping department is in charge of ensuring the main service of the hotel, the accommodation, providing cleanliness and hygiene of the rooms and common spaces presented in the hotel. In addition of being the area that generates the most revenue is also the one that includes a greater human volume (Tasso and Alberca-Sialer, 2019). Despite being a department with a high impact on the guest's stay, the human resources of this department are subject to several factors that can affect their effectiveness and their safety: psychological and physical. These employees are considered unqualified and sometimes suffer discrimination from other employees. Given the specificities of the housekeeping department and its relevance within the tourism enterprise, it was believed that it would be pertinent to carry out an exhaustive study about it.

The objective of the study is to characterize the department of housekeeping considering the quality of service and the satisfaction of the workers, explore...

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Top issues and solutions for your housekeeping department

by Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P.Eng.  

For the majority of hotels nowadays, a perennial issue with no easy solutions is staffing, both in terms of how to cut costs and how to keep top talent engaged. Given that the housekeeping department is more often than not the largest hotel operation in terms of payroll and staff numbers, looking for solutions in this area should be on every hotelier’s mind. With the modern traveler increasingly sensitive to cleanliness errors, it’s the perfect time to evaluate all options for giving this department a boost. Even with new technological introductions, many housekeeping departments are still run the same way they were three decades ago.

No Longer Faceless

A traditional outlook on room attendants was that they would be invisible to guests, working clandestinely to clean rooms and finish turndown service, and leaving the interaction side of things to other frontline staff. As the demand for mobile check-in increases, however, the front desk is losing some of its power to deepen the customer rapport, meaning that housekeepers are now acting as one of the only points of contact between visitors and the hotel.

The effects of this trend play out in a few ways. Firstly, there is an increased need for the training of interaction skills so that room attendants can properly communicate with guests, especially in the country’s native language in which members of this department may not be fluent.  

With guests increasingly making service requests directly to the housekeeper, that employee must have the proper tools to quickly relay that desire to the appropriate people. It’s also a matter of ‘guest intelligence’ whereby simply asking visitors how they are feeling might elicit powerful information that can then be utilized to build profile data and deepen personalization.

Nowhere are these language skills more important than for maintenance issues, though. Guests are hypersensitive to broken items, so engineering and housekeeping must be in constant contact. Of course, there are several prominent technology solutions to satisfy this internal communications need, but then the worry is over whether the room attendants will use it.  

As with any new hardware or software implementation, the solution must be incentivized in order for daily habits to form. This means that the executive housekeeper must first lead by example and inspire his or her team to utilize the new technology. Recently, however, gamification and rewards-based usage models are being deployed.

Where technology can also give your department an upgrade is in route mapping to both streamline the time taken to reach rooms for cleaning as well as knowing when rooms are occupied so guests are never disturbed. Furthermore, with each new room feature that is put in place to satisfy the changing traveler demands – such as new ergonomic desks or wall-mounted swiveling flat screens – there is a new SOP for the room attendant to follow, and yet the number of ‘how to’ guides are not keeping pace with these checklists. For this, new technologies can be harnessed to heighten the team’s aptitude on all the new toys so no one ever feels overwhelmed.

Career Prospects

One primary reason for why your housekeeping department may be suffering from staffing shortages or high turnover rates stems directly from this ‘faceless’ persona in that the line of work is deemed as a job and not a career. For this, there are no quick fixes and it will require a thorough rethink about how you value all your employees and mentor them into leadership roles.

Incentives are quite fruitful in this regard, both as small monetary rewards or other forms of prizes. Many managers remarked that oftentimes a star room attendant will help fill staffing deficiencies by recruiting his or her friends. However, this doesn’t correct the overarching issue of a general lack of vertical advancement prospects for the individual housekeeper. Compounded with that, the majority of the team is sourced from the boomer population as millennials are by and large not attracted to this line of work, deeming it too arduous for too little pay.

One proposed solution was to institute a rotational program whereby members of the housekeeping department would have the opportunity to shift to other operations after a certain number of months. This would give increased exposure to a variety of dynamic work environments while also ensuring that everyone understands the fundamental crucial role that housekeeping plays in any property.

Even though it’s already well-established for other aspects of a hotel, empowering your room attendants is a great motivational tool to keep them engaged. And this doesn’t need to be anything grandiose. Instead, empowerment is best deployed for the small touches that can mean all the difference for a guest.  

For instance, if a room attendant notices that a guest is sick, he or she might ring down to the kitchen to have a bowl of soup brought up. Or if a guest is nearly out of toothpaste, the housekeeper should be authorized to offer a replacement. In essence, this is the old sales mantra of always giving a little bit extra. If guests complain that their in-room coffee wasn’t replenished, then return with a full assortment of roasts for them to try. If a room attendant notices that a person’s shirt is ripped or frayed, then leave a note that mentions your onsite laundry with mending services available.

In this sense, empowerment works to give more responsibility to individual team members so that they feel as though their work is truly valued. Importantly, housekeepers must be made aware of how their extra effort pays off. Instead of only reacting to negative reviews that crop up online, also keep track of guest comments that specifically call out all the superb work that the team has done to make the guest experience all the more special. A little goes a long way, both for the customer as well as the employee.

Lastly, to attack the career question head on, if you want to have a committed team, they need to know that there are opportunities to move up, both with increased responsibility and increased salary. When this subject was approached during the conference, one question that was posed was how many general managers started in housekeeping. After a consensus was reached with the answer being close to zero, the follow-up pertained to how could we ever hope to attract top talent if their career options are limited. Your organizational culture must support vertical advancement from within the housekeeping department – and all operations for that matter – if you are ever going to solve your staffing issues.

Modern Service Delivery

Directly linked to career advancement but with a guest-centric point of view, your housekeepers must play a critical role in elevating your service delivery to where it needs to be in order to impress the modern traveler. With millennials and centennials now representing the majority of consumers, you must adjust to what they want.

As previously mentioned, any housekeeping or maintenance errors are deal breakers for these guests. Extremely wary of rooms that have been used by numerous other people, travelers nowadays may even inspect such hard-to-clean areas like under the bed or around the back of the nightstand. Moreover, they increasingly want fragrance-free rooms without the application of chemical cleaning products. Add to that a heightened sense of duty to the environment, and all these factors contribute to a drastically altered procedure for the housekeeping department should operate.

On this latter point, room attendants are increasingly important for demonstrating to guests that the hotel takes sustainability practices seriously, frequently overlapping with new processes that decrease the amount of time it takes to clean a room. The first and most vital step is a waste audit which may reveal several prominent ways that housekeepers can help to meet this modern service expectation.

Towel and linen recycling programs mean that housekeepers may not have to change the bed or give fresh towels every day, while transitioning from mini-bottles to dispensers likewise reduces the workload. Moreover, switching to organic cleaners often means using more versatile products thereby allowing you to cut the number of cleaners required, satisfying the fragrance-free crowd and decreasing what housekeepers have to carry around with them. Such little activities are significant because guests don’t see all the large-scale back-of-end environmental improvements that you’ve made to your water or electrical systems.

The Bottom Line

Any way you slice it, this is still a numbers game. While hoteliers value their team and strive to treat them like family, there will always be the mandate to cut costs. One metric that helps to frame the issue is ‘minutes per occupied room’ whereby your goal is to minimize this number through a holistic investigation of every activity your housekeepers undertake.  

There is a high correlation between those actions you take to decrease this MinPOR figure and how engaged your team is. Lowered MinPOR means a reduced workload but it can only be attained by recruiting your housekeepers to help address the problem. And therein lies the real solution – get your team involved to answer the real questions and the cost savings will come. ■

One of the world’s most published writers in hospitality, Larry Mogelonsky is the principal of Hotel Mogel Consulting Limited, a Toronto-based consulting practice. His experience encompasses hotel properties around the world, both branded and independent, and ranging from luxury and boutique to select-service. Larry is also on several boards for companies focused on hotel technology. His work includes four books “Are You an Ostrich or a Llama?” (2012), “Llamas Rule” (2013), “Hotel Llama” (2015), and “The Llama is Inn” (2017). You can reach Larry at [email protected] to discuss hotel business challenges or to book speaking engagements.

PHOTO CREDIT: DMITRY KALINOVSKY/SHUTTERSTOCK

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I appreciate how the article identifies common issues such as staff turnover, training and communication gaps, time management, and maintaining consistency in cleaning standards. It recognizes the significance of addressing these challenges proactively to ensure the smooth functioning of the housekeeping department.

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Case study: housekeeping rebriefed

Concern focuses in on first aid and the risk of slips, trips and falls..

First aider at work (stock image, not of Crewe depot) 

Reporter's concern

Someone raised a concern with CIRAS about working practices on the shop floor at Crewe depot, worried that employees could be injured. They said working areas were not kept clean or tidy, and tools were left on the ground, risking a slip, trip or fall. In a separate concern, they believed there were no trained first aiders on site, so employees are not receiving the correct care following injuries. They had also noticed that accident forms were not being filled in.

The person reporting the concern asked Arriva TrainCare to:

• audit the area and see that it is clean, tidy and free from trip hazards
• ensure there is always at least one first aider on site and that accidents are logged.

Arriva TrainCare's response 

We take housekeeping seriously and have released several briefs and newsletters covering the importance of good housekeeping and what everyone needs to do. We also have an end of shift form that covers the standard of housekeeping, and the depot health, safety, environment and quality (HSEQ) tour form has a section covering housekeeping. To address this concern, we will raise a new brief describing everyone’s roles and responsibility when it comes to housekeeping. Managers will also complete further depot HSEQ tours.

Regarding the concern about a lack of first aiders, we have 10 first aiders at Crewe depot, split out across the various shifts, and there is sufficient first aider cover for all shifts. There is training booked in to recertify first aiders and certify new ones. We have a first aid risk assessment in place, within the depot arrangements plan that is available for all employees to view. On review, the first aiders’ photo and name posters and signing-in board by the control office needed updating, and this is now in progress due to the training. We believe that this is the reason for the concern being raised, as it meant it was not clear that the first aiders are monitored and kept relevant. However, first aiders are available on each shift.

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Housekeeping Department: COVID-19 Crisis Management Framework

June 05, 2020 •

3 min reading

With many hotels already closed, the first step of reacting to this crisis has been completed. This critical action hits pause on numerous cash outflows. Therefore, we suggest a financial restructuring framework [ 1 ] as a crisis response approach to look for what to do next. Now is the time to stabilize your employees, develop and implement your reopening plan to come out of these challenging times stronger than before.

While often not at the forefront of hotel owners’ or asset managers’ minds, housekeeping is arguably one of the most important departments . After all, the housekeeping team takes care of the “house” that you invited your “guests” into and focuses on the main product of a hotel operation - the rooms. With COVID-19, housekeeping has become more critical than ever. Those teams put their health in danger to look after the remaining staff and guests. 

Even once the worst of the virus is over, the threat is unlikely to disappear overnight. Therefore, once hotels can safely reopen, guest attitudes and your operations will likely be impacted in the long-term [2] . Even before the virus, 78% [3] of hotel guests felt cleanliness to be the most crucial factor affecting their accommodation choice. We expect [i] this percentage to increase, as guests will expect the highest standards of sanitation to feel comfortable in your hotel. Therefore, hotels and asset managers worldwide need to work with their housekeeping teams to better prepare for these impacts after re-opening.

1. Financial and Data Analysis

The high costs, that are inherent to an integral department such as housekeeping, are expected to rise as additional precautions must be taken for the safety of the staff and the guests. Now is the time to look at your current housekeeping practices and, by prioritizing hotel housekeeping analytics, you can take advantage of the technologies that are becoming an important part of hospitality management. They allow you to spot opportunities to increase your bottom line by eliminating wasted resources and going beyond having rooms cleaned in record time. Online checklists, location-based room assignments, accurately predicted room cleaning times and automated reporting are examples of technologies that will prove extremely useful in your reopening. Planning for increased room cleaning times to account for additional sanitation measures will be necessary.

2. Restructuring and Training

Once you’ve leveraged and analyzed your data on how to update the housekeeping processes, it is vital to tackle these newfound opportunities by beginning to restructure the department in preparation for the reopening.

During the closure, you must ensure that the hotel is cleaned a minimum of once a week; best practices include allocating one attendant per floor to reduce cross-contamination. Furthermore, your housekeeping managers should stay in touch with room attendants and use online platforms to begin retraining. This will allow the team to get ahead of the crisis and be ready for the next step.  After re-opening, guests will have a keener eye on the work of the housekeeping team, which is why they need to be prepared.

3. Implementing your Reopening Plan

The final stage of implementing your new plan will take place after re-opening. Housekeeping Consultant, Sophie Huertas, recommends including a pamphlet in all rooms along with the marketing collateral from other departments (i.e., room service menus). This pamphlet should be signed from the housekeeping team and should detail the steps taken to maintain the room’s hygiene and guests’ health. It could also be beneficial to wrap more items in plastic/paper after a room’s turnover to help signal sanitation measures to wary guests. Furthermore, many standards that had to be put in place during the virus, such as installing automatic hand sanitizer dispensers in public areas, should be kept long after the passing of the crisis.

At the end of the day, the plans you create and implement should make your housekeeping team more efficient when tackling additional hygiene measures that are necessary post-COVID-19. The steps outlined in this article will help reassure your guests to stay at your property once more. We encourage you to begin reflecting on how specific departments, like housekeeping, can be improved and leveraged in time for your hotel’s re-opening.

A special thank you to Sophie Huertas , Housekeeping Consultant and Trainer.

Sources of information

• [1] Managing business continuity and finance during COVID-19
• [2] The importance of hygiene for guest satisfaction .
• [3] How Hotel Housekeeping Analytics Can Improve Property Operations

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Evaluating the environmental sustainability strategies of the housekeeping department: the case of an international hotel chain in Hong Kong, China

Tourism Critiques

ISSN : 2633-1225

Article publication date: 5 May 2021

Issue publication date: 18 June 2021

The purpose of this paper is to use the case of an international luxury hotel chain in Hong Kong to illustrate general environmentally-friendly practices in housekeeping. Six in-depth interviews were conducted with the housekeeping department staff to evaluate the effectiveness of the Hotel’s environmental sustainability practices by analysing their benefits and limitations. Results reveal that all informants acknowledged the environmental sustainability strategies adopted by the Hotel, which can benefit stakeholders. Despite multiple green practices in hotel housekeeping, several strategies may not be as significant as expected with misaligned expectations from the management and the actual practices may create excessive workload for frontline room attendants with a lack of policy enforcement and supportive policies. Therefore, hotels should keep a mutual communication between the management and frontline employees prior to conducting environmentally- and employee-friendly practices. Given the labour-intensive nature of the hotel industry, the housekeeping department should ensure employment equality policy is in place with adequate environmentally friendly support for employees.

• Environmental sustainability strategies
• Housekeeping department

Choy, M. , Cheng, J. and Yu, K. (2021), "Evaluating the environmental sustainability strategies of the housekeeping department: the case of an international hotel chain in Hong Kong, China", Tourism Critiques , Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 115-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/TRC-01-2021-0001

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Monica Choy, Justin Cheng and Karl Yu.

Published in Tourism Critiques: Practice and Theory . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The concept of “environmentally friendly” practices had appeared in several European countries and in the USA since 1980s ( Wong et al. , 1996 ). In 1993, the Green Hotel Association ( GHA, 2005 ) introduced the importance of applying environmentally friendly practices to protect the environment. In the same year, the International Hotels Environment Initiative, now known as the International Tourism Partnership (ITP), was established to regulate and establish standards on hotel environmentally friendliness ( International Tourism Partnership, 2014 ). The concept of sustainable development becomes further specific after the announcement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which outlines detailed action plans to achieve a sustainable future for all people. Sustainable development aims to achieve a balanced economic, social and environmental integration by addressing challenges related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, prosperity and peace and justice through the participation of multiple stakeholders from private sectors, government and civil society ( UN, 2018 ). In this paper, we will see if the housekeeping practice can help keep a sustainable environment while frontline staff are willing and comfortable to keep up with this goal.

A unified definition of “green hotels” remains non-existent; however, this “green” concept is occasionally defined as hotels that are “environmentally responsible” and “environmentally friendly” ( Kim and Han, 2010 ). Another definition states that “green hotels” should use “recycled”, “low-polluting” or “energy-saving” materials ( Chen and Chen, 2012 ). Apart from simply using “green” in hotels, the word “environmental sustainability” is also associated in compliance with corporate social responsibilities (CSR) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ( Raub and Martin-Rios, 2019 ). Hotel CSR policy concentrates on education; skill enhancement; restoration; livelihood support; social problems; support to government policy, environmental protection and conservation; extended support and community development ( Sudhagar and Samuel, 2019 ). SDGs are focussed on fostering economic growth and addressing various social needs, which include delivering decent employment, assuring sustainable production and consumption practices, achieving gender equality and protecting the environment ( UN, 2018 ). The investigated hotel group claims it is following the SDGs for its staff. Studies have revealed that large hotel chain groups are more enthusiastic in adopting green policies than independent operators do, but the compliance level may vary ( Jones and Comfort, 2019 ; Chen, 2019 ; Jarman-Walsh, 2018 ). People may have various descriptions and interpretations on the effort exerted by hotels, but all of them tend to share the same central idea that hotels should help alleviate environmental pressures during their operation ( Casado, 2012 ).

The rapid expansion of advanced transportation has promoted tourism and hotel industry ( Georgescu, 2016 ). The hotel sector represents a significant share of total tourism revenues of over US$550bn in 2017 which was generated by a handful of international hotel chains, such as Marriot, Starwood, Hilton and Hyatt ( Lock, 2019 ). Given the large consumption of water and electricity, the industry is exacerbating environmental damages by using natural reserves and generating a considerable amount of pollution ( Sourvinou and Filimonau, 2018 ), which can pollute the environment ( Mbasera et al. , 2016 ). A report states that an average hotel releases an estimated 160–200 kg of carbon dioxide per square metre of room floor area per year, whereas the water consumption per guest per night is between 170 and 440 litres in a 5-star hotel ( Bohdanowicz, 2005 ). On average, hotels produce 1 kg of waste per guest per night ( International Tourism Partnership, 2014 ). Studies have consistently suggested the hotel industry should implement sustainable business practices ( Jones et al. , 2016 ). In the balance of keeping up with revenues and protecting the environment, hotels can make or break environment sustainability ( Chen, 2019 ; Jarman-Walsh, 2018 ). On one hand, the hotel sector can generate profit and provide decent employment opportunities. On the other hand, they can contribute to building an environmentally-friendly society by reducing the impact of climate change and enhancing social capital ( Pérez-Pineda et al. , 2017 ). Some hotel chains have found ways to remain “green” by reducing energy consumption and waste production ( Mak and Chang, 2019 ; Yoon et al. , 2016 ). For instance, Hyatt has contributed to SGDs through different CSR initiatives. Waste management and recycling strategies are prepared to decrease hotel energy and water consumption and greenhouse gas emission, thereby enabling environmental stewardship culture ( Hyatt, 2018 ). Marriott has pledged to become a sustainable hotel chain by minimising carbon and water usage and choosing environmentally responsible suppliers ( Marriott International, 2017 ).

Notwithstanding the shared responsibilities of all stakeholders, business sectors have a critical role in contributing to environmental sustainability ( Jones and Comfort, 2019 ). The hospitality industry was urged to adopt environmental sustainability strategies in their daily operations, which include setting priorities, developing and implementing green practices that are consistent with the developed SDGs and striving for balance among economic growth, environment protection and social welfare improvement ( Jones et al. , 2016 ). However, a gap exists between the suggested global-level sustainable development blueprints (e.g. MDGs and SDGs) and the actual implementation at the organisational level because of the difference in sociocultural, economic, legal, workforce and customer demographics in each market ( Raub and Martin-Rios, 2019 ). Consequently, individual hotels tend to adopt selected sustainability strategies, which advocate easy-to-implement green initiatives that satisfy the needs and expectations in the local context ( Akenji and Bengtsson, 2014 ). Findings from extant studies have revealed implementation failure usually arising from companies who fail in identifying localisation issues and addressing vulnerable areas where require considerable support ( Allen et al. , 2019 ; Scott, 2018 ).

What environmental sustainability strategies are adopted in the housekeeping department of the sample Hotel?

How do employees perceive the benefits of environmental sustainability strategies in housekeeping?

What are the barriers that can reduce the effectiveness of environmental sustainability strategies in housekeeping?

How beneficial are the housekeeping green practices in contributing to the Hotel’s environmental sustainability strategies and the hotel industry in Hong Kong from the employees’ perspective? How can the implementation of environmental sustainability strategies be improved?

2. Literature review

Sustainability refers to the mode of development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” ( WCED, 1987 ). The concept of sustainability concretises when the three elemental pillars ( UN, 2005 ), namely, economic development, social development and environmental protection, can extend the planet’s protection to include all countries, governments, private organisations and individuals ( UN, 2018 ). Sustainability has been applied to numerous industries including hospitality ( Mak and Chang, 2019 ). The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2005) define sustainable tourism as the “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities”. One of the main objectives of sustainable tourism is to “make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development” ( United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 2005 ). As a key stakeholder in the tourism industry, hotels have adopted the same concept of sustainable tourism ( Kim et al. , 2012 ).

Hotels, as the major producer of commercial waste, are compelled to this environmental issue ( Kasim et al. , 2018 ). Green practices may be one of the most effective policies to increase the hotel’s monetary and environmental status. Managers of environmentally-friendly hotels are eager to “go green” to save energy and money ( Singh, 2015 ). The US Green Building Council (2021) revealed that the hotel industry in the USA spends $4bn per year on energy. Reducing energy consumption by 10% can improve the average daily room rate for up to $1.35 ( Energystar, 2021 ). The hotel housekeeping department is responsible for keeping the property clean and comfortable while producing significant environmental risks and liabilities in their operation. Their crucial role in achieving sustainable development was often overlooked ( O'Neill, 2018 ). Implementing sustainable practices in housekeeping can exhibit a notable impact on waste reduction. A study on hotels in Hong Kong revealed that up to 15% of energy and water can be conserved by implementing effective green practices in the housekeeping department ( Deng and Burnett , 2002a, 2002b ). Eaton Hong Kong, which is under Langham Hospitality Group, has successfully helped reduce waste production and won the green hotel prize awarded by Green Hotelier of 2015, Asia Pacific ( Green Hotelier, 2015 ). Eaton has been the first hotel in Hong Kong to install their own water bottling system and introduce refillable amenities, which can save a total of 850,000 pieces of plastic waste each year ( Eaton Hong Kong, 2015 ).

Apart from their environmental benefits, applying green programmes in hotel housekeeping can also provide economic benefits and employment opportunities. Despite absence of validated secondary data on the total number of employees working in the housekeeping department in Hong Kong, hospitality sector provides substantial employment opportunities (i.e. 38,800) for frontline employee in the first quarter of 2020 ( Census and Statistics Department, 2020a ). Green programmes may create more decent work for workers to make a living. As stated in the sample Hotel group’s website, they offer their colleagues competitive wages, health care, retirement savings and performance-based incentives, while also offering industry-leading perks to eligible staff, including complimentary hotel stays, which should be considered “decent work” and “sustainable” as defined by the UN in their SDG framework. On the economic side, green programmes may help save natural as well as economic resources for our planet. For example, clean water accounts for 10% of the utility fee in numerous hotels, which was twice the amount of water that the hotel has consumed, because half of the total fee is paid for the disposal of waste water ( Tuppen, 2013 ). Saving water as a housekeeping practice can decrease the amount of water used, thereby decreasing the price paid for disposing wastewater in the process. Reducing the frequency of a full-service room cleaning can decrease the money spent on detergents and electricity, while increasing the life of linens ( Heney, 2009 ).

Apart from hotels in Hong Kong, hotels in other countries have also implemented green concepts; for example, the ITP is promoting the hotel industry can be a force for good and make a positive contribution to the UN’s SDGs and to the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) ( The International Tourism Partnership (ITP), 2017 ). A hotel in Hawaii has committed to protecting the environment by merely using botanical cleansers and disinfectants in housekeeping. Thus, switching from synthetic chemicals to natural detergents can reduce the occurrence of allergies, headaches and dry, chapped hands among housekeeping staff and simultaneously helps in protecting offshore coral reefs by preventing the intensification of water pollution ( The Fairmont Orchid, 2004 ; Graci and Dodds, 2008 ). Studies have shown that green cleaners posed no harm to the environment because they do not contain or release harmful substances such as volatile organic compounds into the air when being used ( Zabiegala, 2006 ). In addition, green cleansers lack irritants, abrasives and toxicity, whilst being highly biodegradable in the environment compared with synthetic cleaners ( Fukey and Issac, 2014 ).

Guests’ perception of health and safety exhibit a significantly positive influence on their purchase intention in green hotels ( Jiang and Kim, 2015 ). Environmental protection has been promoted because customers recognise that business activities can cause serious damage to the environment ( Han et al. , 2018 ). Customers believe that they are a part of the “green programme” ( Sánchez-Ollero et al. , 2014 ) and feel a sense of satisfaction and strong “emotional benefits” for leaving a sustainable planet to the next generation ( Kuminoff et al. , 2010 ; Robinot and Giannelloni, 2010 ). The study revealed that customers can obtain “status-enhancing benefits” and tend to believe that they may leave a good impression to others by choosing green hotels ( Jiang and Kim, 2015 ). Thus, acknowledging guests for their environmental efforts ( Suki and Suki, 2015 ) and enhancing customers’ sustainability mindset ( Chen and Chen, 2012 ) are powerful forces for promoting sustainable hotel service provision and consumption.

Good intentions may not consistently be translated into desirable outcomes and occasionally become detrimental. Housekeeping staff expects a feasible and cost-effective green policy and practices but experiences extra burden such as sorting out rubbish to different recyclable items ( Wan et al. , 2017 ). In 2014, a group of 200 protesters in Toronto appealed to end the “Make A Green Choice” programme launched by an international hotel chain in 2009. The programme encouraged guests to forego housekeeping in exchange of a $5 voucher or loyalty points in the interest of “conserving water, energy and other resources”. The programme claimed to create environmental benefits, in which a one-night participation could save 49.2 gallons of water and sufficient natural gas to produce heat for a 400-square-foot room for 4 h ( Sheraton Baltimore Washington Airport Hotel, 2017 ). However, this programme resulted in a burden amongst room attendants because the rooms that were not cleaned for several days required additional time and effort to tidy afterwards ( Mojtehedzadeh, 2014 ). The malpractice amongst housekeepers can also harm the effectiveness of green strategies. A common practice that towels on the floor or in the bathtub should be laundered, whilst others left hanging should be kept for reuse ( Heney, 2009 ). A hotel in New Orleans applied this towel reuse policy. However, the housekeeping staff changed all towels and linens daily even the guests participated in the environmental protection programme ( Eilperin, 2010 ). This example has illustrated that environmental training and communication can influence the employees’ ecological behaviour in compliance with the hotel’s green policy ( Chou, 2014 ; Sourvinou and Filimonau, 2018 ). The success of green practices was significantly related to employee participation and engagement ( Kim and Choy, 2011 ). Green organisational climates, management support, employees’ environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and environmental concern can influence the employees’ willingness to adopt environmental management practices ( Zientara and Zamojska, 2018 ; Chan et al. , 2014 ). The lack of willingness to change long-established work routines and to monitor the actual purpose of the green initiatives can also diminish the room attendants’ intention to execute sustainability practices ( Iraldo et al. , 2017 ).

Sustainable policy in a hotel is definitely related to gender equality and reduced inequalities in a society ( The International Tourism Partnership (ITP), 2017 ). Females are considered to be easier affected by environmental and economic changes and, therefore, should be given an equal opportunity to develop their career with a decent work environment. Traditionally, housekeeping has been viewed as “household related” and females should be taking up more responsibilities ( Thébaud et al. , 2019 ). There are more women than men working in operation positions in the housekeeping department in Hong Kong ( Employees Training Board,2016 / 2017 ) but only a minority of working females can be promoted to senior positions in the hotel industry ( Segovia-Perez et al. , 2019 ). Sustainable practices may buffer the negative effects of the deteriorating service quality ( Van Rheede and Dekker, 2016 ). Several guests still express negative impressions of green hotel products and experiences ( Robinot and Giannelloni, 2010 ). For instance, several green hotel initiatives such as refillable soap and shampoo dispensers, low-flow showerheads and linen reuse are considered as unfavourable amongst the guests because they perceive these practices as unsanitary, uncomfortable or an inconvenience during their stay. Results showed that although guests often appreciate hotels that contribute to protect the environment, they are generally unwilling to sacrifice their living standards and comfort levels ( Baloglu and Jones, 2015 ).

3. Methodology

the current environmental sustainability strategies in housekeeping;

employees’ perception of the benefits and hurdles in executing green practices;

benefits of housekeeping green practices in contribution to the Hotel’s environmental sustainability strategies and the hotel industry in Hong Kong; and

recommendations on the implementation of environmental sustainability strategies.

Using the participants’ mother tongue in a qualitative interview is advantageous for obtaining rich responses by minimising language barriers and developing a good rapport ( Welch and Piekkari, 2006 ). All interviews were recorded and transcribed after an informed consent was obtained. All respondents were told that their participation was completely voluntary and they could withdraw from the interview at any time. Moreover, the respondents were assured that the collected data would be kept strictly confidential and reported anonymously. Subsequently, a content analysis on the data obtained was conducted.

4. Findings and discussion

4.1 respondents’ profile.

Six interviews with three room attendants, two supervisors and one assistant manager in the housekeeping department of a research organisation (referred to as “Hotel” in the subsequent mentions in this study) were conducted. The number of male and female respondents was evenly distributed. Their age ranged from 25 to 55, and they have worked for the Hotel between one and six years on average. Most of them completed a secondary or postsecondary education, whereas only one received a tertiary education ( Table 1 ).

Of the 25 workers in the housekeeping department, we had interviews with six, including three males and three females. However, given the general situation in Hong Kong, the majority (20 out of 25) working in the housekeeping department are women in their 40 s ( Census and Statistics Department, 2020b ). There may be various factors for women working in the housekeeping department. The level of salary can be one factor not attractive enough to young males to work for housekeeping ( Baum et al. , 2020 ). However, according to the website of the Hotel, it stated that gender is not a point of consideration in recruitment and the Hotel will only consider employees’ work ability when considering their promotion. We did not specifically ask questions about gender difference in the interviews, but believed the imbalance of female to male ratio in the housekeeping department may be because of various social factors ( Segovia-Perez et al. , 2019 ; Nimri, et al. , 2020 ). With the implementation of SDGs strategies in hotels, it is believed that a more decent environment can be created for women to work.

4.2 Environmental sustainability strategies in housekeeping

4.2.1 reusing and recycling..

All interviewees cited “reuse and recycling” for their first answer in the interview given that the practice was simple and clear. The “three treasures” refer to “shampoo, conditioner and shower gel” bottles which are placed together in the bathroom. Informants were taught to collect reusable amenities in the guestroom and place them in the corresponding collection boxes for reuse if leftovers remain. The Hotel has collaborated with a distilled water brand to provide “light plastic bottles” that can be twisted easily to save space for recycling. The plastic bottles are collected by a recycling company daily. The assistant manager mentioned that a bed linen reuse programme was implemented, in which ripped or stained linen are turned into condemned cloth for cleaning. Ripped pillowcases are reused as excellent dusters for cleaning glasses and mirrors without scratching them. Consistent with previous studies, our findings showed that reusing and recycling material is a widely used practice for green hotels that implement CSR practices ( Sudhagar and Samuel, 2019 ; Chen and Chen, 2012 ).

4.2.2 Integration of environmental considerations in daily operations.

The Hotel integrates environmentally-friendly practices to their operational procedures. The assistant manager mentioned that under the bed linen reuse programme, the bed linen for guests is merely changed during the 1st, 4th and 7th day of their stay, unless the guests place a “Bed Linen Refresh Card” on the bedside to ask for a bed sheet replacement. To enhance energy efficiency, the electricity in the guestrooms can only be turned with a key card inserted into the card slot at the door. The light will be automatically off in five seconds if the key card is removed when guests leave the guestroom. A dual-flush toilet with “full flushing” and “half flushing” buttons is installed. Other environmentally-friendly practices include using a high-power destaining powder and energy-saving equipment. A highly soluble destain powder can dissolve naturally without heavy brushing and rinsing with plenty of water to remove the stain. Energy-saving vacuum machines were also adopted. The Hotel has exerted an effort to update their equipment for improved green practices and efficient use for the employees. These findings are consistent with previous studies, which indicate that hotel chains are prepared to implement practices that reduce energy consumption in their daily operations ( Mak and Chang, 2019 ; Yoon et al. , 2016 ; Casado, 2012 ).

4.3 Benefits of environmentally-friendly strategies in housekeeping

All informants have agreed that housekeeping green practices can contribute to the company’s environmental management programme and generate various benefits for the environment, hotels, housekeeping staff and guests.

4.3.1 Benefit for the environment

4.3.1.1 waste reduction and water and energy conservation..

All room attendants have agreed that the “three treasures” can help reduce waste given that they typically clean about 20 rooms per day. The assistant manager stated that 600 rooms are available in the Hotel, with an average of 80% occupancy rate. Therefore, a total of 1,000 wasted empty bottles were produced daily. The staff members could realise the waste volume generated in the hotel industry, and they have agreed that the “reuse and recycle” practices can help reduce the number of waste, which is beneficial to the hotel industry and its stakeholders. Furthermore, green hotel practices can help reduce the water consumption, thereby benefitting the environment. The supervisor and assistant manager mentioned that water conservation strategies include the use of environmentally-friendly destain powders and the bed linen reuse programme, as well as the use of electronic key cards and dual flush toilets in guestrooms. Results confirm that environmental knowledge, awareness and concern are the key motivational sources for the employees’ ecological behaviour ( Zientara and Zamojska, 2018 ; Chan et al. , 2014 ). From the implemented practices, we found the housekeeping green practices has strived and contributed to attainment of hotel’s environmental sustainability strategies by reducing energy, water consumption and waste generation.

4.3.1.2 Benefits for hotels

4.3.1.2.1 money saving.

The assistant manager claimed that replacing bed linens less frequently can help save laundry fees given that this chore is one of the largest expenses in the housekeeping department. The laundry company charges the Hotel based on the weight of linen. By reducing the replacement of bed linens, the Hotel can save money, water and energy. The bed linen reuse programme can help reduce the money spent on laundry fees and extend the life cycle of bed linens. This view is consistent with Heney (2009) , who claimed that green practices in housekeeping can provide economic benefit to the hotels. Similar to previous hotel-related studies ( Wan et al. , 2017 ), our findings also indicate that installing water-conserving fixtures, including the dual-flushing systems for toilets in guestrooms, is a common practice for green hotels, thereby decreasing water utility bills.

4.3.1.2.2 Increasing work efficiency

The assistant manager stated that an insufficient supply of amenities during peak season is evident, given that stocks of amenities merely arrive twice a week. Thus, unused and unopened amenities should be kept. In addition, the newly purchased vacuum machines exhibit better suction power than other types of vacuum machine, which helps save the time and effort in cleaning, increase room availability and create a decent work environment. With less effort to clean the carpet, females are beneficial for their less strong physical strength and the practice of using more powerful vacuum machines thus creates greater gender equality and provides reduced inequalities. The results have demonstrated two things. Firstly, sustainability commitment and business performance are interrelated and interdependent ( Jones and Comfort, 2019 ). Secondly, green practices may be one of the most effective policies to improve the monetary and environmental status of a hotel ( Singh, 2015 ).

4.3.1.3 Benefits for employees.

The provision of green cleaners and detergents was appreciated by all respondents because these cleaners are safer and less harmful to the environment compared with synthetic ones. These findings are consistent with the findings of Fukey and Issac (2014) . Our findings indicate that room attendants approve the bed linen reuse programme because they must only “tidy up” the bed instead of adding another chore of changing the bed linens in every room, except for the guests who have requested for a replacement. Room attendants can save their effort and time in a room given that they must only focus on cleaning the bathroom, which create a more decent work environment with same economic returns. The use of destain powder and the bed linen reuse programme can significantly reduce the workload by decreasing physical work, which is consistent with Chan et al. (2014) , who argued that employees are indispensable in implementing environmental programmes. Operational inconvenience and additional workloads can undermine the successful execution of hotel green practices ( Linneberg et al. , 2019 ).

4.3.1.4 Benefits for guests.

During the interview, the assistant manager mentioned that several guests wrote a message which noted their appreciation of the environmental effort spent by the Hotel. Moreover, the guests were pleased to be part of this effort. For instance, they were given a sense of pleasure and satisfaction as they participate in green practices. This finding is similar to the finding of Sánchez-Ollero et al. (2014) . However, the results contradicted a study in mainland China, which indicated that the green initiatives are insignificant for customer satisfaction ( Lee et al. , 2018 ). Our findings have contradicted previous studies, which indicated that hotel green practices induce a high risk of unpleasant customer experience ( Robinot and Giannelloni, 2010 ). The findings indicated that the customer satisfaction level towards the hotel’s green initiatives may vary in terms of sociocultural backgrounds and cultural values ( Raub and Martin-Rios, 2019 ).

4.4 Barriers lowering the effectiveness of environmentally friendly strategies in housekeeping

4.4.1 heavy workload amongst frontline room attendants..

Owing to the high physical demand and heavy workload, room attendants are more prone to face stress and job burnout than other staff members ( Chiang and Liu, 2017 ; Kensbock et al. , 2017 ). Sorting the “three-treasures” and bringing them back to the collection point downstairs require extra effort especially in peak seasons with hundreds of rooms to clean every day. Room attendants must carry unused amenities around on a small trolley during their work hours. Manpower shortages and heavy workloads are the major barriers to implementing green management in the hotel industry ( Wan et al. , 2017 ).

4.4.2 Lack of enforcement.

The supervisor and the assistant manager likewise claimed that closely monitoring the room attendants’ job performance would be difficult. They stated that several room attendants would throw away toilet supplies. Thus, the “three treasures” practice is merely voluntary and recycling is considered as an “extra duty”, particularly during peak seasons. The supervisory staff members are busy with inspecting the rooms for cleanliness and conducting administrative duties. Thus, they do conduct the first-hand execution of the green policy and cannot take close control whilst room attendants perform their duties, which make the policy “empty” in implementation to a certain extent. This result was supported by Iraldo et al. (2017) , who suggested that an effective sustainability monitoring system is essential to improve the green practice implementation in hotels.

4.4.3 Defective supportive policy.

Room attendant A stated that the cleaning power of the destain powder was not as ideal as the management mentioned given that it takes about 20 min to soak. Room attendant C mentioned that only one bottle of destain powder is provided for each floor, whereas the management instructed to put it back immediately to the pantry after every single use to prevent the bottle from spilling and getting wet. Thus, no room attendant would waste plenty of time on travelling back and forth to get the destain powder. Although new vacuuming machines are available, several room attendants prefer to use the old vacuum machines without excessive suction power, particularly for the carpets in the guestrooms, which require extra strength and effort to be swept. The aforementioned examples have shown actual work environment may become the barriers to effectively implement environmental sustainability strategies. The supportive measures in the green practices are not as employee-friendly as expected, thereby significantly lowering the effectiveness of the green strategies used by the Hotel. Our results are consistent with previous studies, which claimed that resistance to change can reduce the employees’ intention to implement green practices ( Iraldo et al. , 2017 ). This finding is consistent with the findings of extant studies, which indicated that support and commitment from the top management to provide the necessary tools and proper equipment are the key success factors of sustainability management effort ( Mak and Chang, 2019 ).

4.5 Usefulness of housekeeping green practices in contributing to industry’s environmental sustainability strategies and recommendations for improvement

All interviewees have agreed that the environmental strategies applied in housekeeping can help reduce the waste of the hotel industry in general. In addition, the respondents have suggested that improvements can be implemented in the following areas:

4.5.1 Improvement on supportive policy.

Casado (2012) supported that the environmental sustainability philosophy must be integrated into the company’s activities at all levels. For instance, room attendant B suggested that recycling boxes should be collected from the office daily by housemen, who support the housekeeping department staff. Two room attendants also hoped that the recycling boxes should be placed on every floor, instead of placing them in the office. They prioritised convenience for executing green practices, which can be correlated with their heavy workload and hasty working environment ( Sarosi, 2017 ). Certain hotels have implemented the same green initiatives, in which recycle bins are placed on every floor landing for housekeepers to use ( Brown Palace, 2019 ).

4.5.2 Enhancing communication.

All supervisors have agreed that they should be obliged to establish a communication bridge between the management and the frontline employees. Thus, they should be proactive in reflecting the current operational issues, such as relaying the ruling opinion on the new vacuum machines to the department head to solve the problem and implement improvements. Moreover, supervisors should be further proactive in understanding the needs of room attendants, whilst enhancing the communication with the top management to help them set out employee-friendly decisions. Chou (2014) found that personal environmental norms exhibited a stronger effect on employees’ green behaviour than other variables. Furthermore, the senior management should further emphasise green engagement to implement environmental policies, and the human resources management should provide environmental education among employees ( Sudhagar and Samuel, 2019 ; Sourvinou and Filimonau, 2018 ).

4.5.3 Recruitment and understaffing.

Before COVID-19 outbreak, existing hotels have been facing manpower constraints because of an overall decline of the young population’s entrance into the workforce with the aging population, as mentioned during the Hotel Management Asia Summit (2018) that was held on 27 September 2018 in Hong Kong. A serious manpower shortage has occurred in numerous positions, including room attendant, room service butler and floor attendant positions ( VTC, 2018 ). The pro-democracy movement and cumulated impact of the pandemic have caused career discontinuity and underemployment across all tourism-related industry sectors at all levels abruptly to release labour force to other industries ( Yau, 2020 ). Hong Kong’s double whammy of social unrest and the pandemic demonstrated precarious employment of tourism industry practitioners ( Choy and Kamoche, 2020 ). The low income hospitality frontline, young and women workers are among one of the most vulnerable groups at risk of being made redundant or become a victim of underemployment partly because of their limited education and skill level ( Baum et al. , 2020 ) and perennial gender inequalities problem for women in the hospitality industry ( Santero-Sanchez et al. , 2015 ). While tourism and hospitality employees are struggling for alternative employment and some tourism organisations are trying to keep a tether to their manpower pool in wake of COVID-19, it is anticipated that there would be fierce competition for new bloods and those who opt for (or not) staying with their original sector/industry ( Baum et al. , 2020 ). Green practices have created “extra work” and used “additional time” without extra pay that affect employee decision to stay or leave with tourism-related organisations on one hand ( Choy and Kamoche, 2020 ). This may not be a sustainable practice as the SDG framework aims to create a decent work environment and economic growth for the workers on the other hand ( UN, 2015 ).

Supervisor B mentioned that understaffing is an evident issue in the Hotel. For instance, several staff members from the human resources department were called to help with housekeeping during peak seasons. This phenomenon could be the reason why some room attendants were uncooperative with environmental strategies. The supervisor believed that for the long-term benefits of the Hotel, housemen or “green assistants” are employed. Apart from creating more employment opportunities and economic values for all people, this is a better solution than raising the employees’ salary given that the green programme should not be a responsibility of a specific position. Gender stereotypes remain prevalent in the hotel industry, in which millions of women work as room attendants and clean a total of 15.5 million hotel rooms worldwide ( Sarosi, 2017 ). Therefore, the hotel industry should take steps to ensure a decent work environment for all, including women ( UN, 2018 ).

4.5.4 Expand the scope of green practice.

Supervisor A suggested that additional reuse strategies should be used. For example, laundry bags can be reused, particularly when a supply shortage exists. The toilet paper can be retained until the next guest stay provided that the thickness of paper should be greater than 3 cm to facilitate easy usage. The collected “three treasures” can be reused for removing the stench and slight stains of furniture or for use by employees in staff toilets and canteen. The assistant manager also suggested that amenities can be kept for the next stay if the plastic cover remains intact without being opened or getting wet.

4.5.5 Raising employees’ environmental awareness.

Studies reveal that environmental awareness can enhance the employee’s intention to implement green practices ( Chan et al. , 2014 ) and the SDG framework. Supervisor A stated that the Hotel should raise the environmental awareness amongst employees before commanding them to adopt environmental practices. Thus, the employees must be daily reminded about environmental information during the morning briefing. Moreover, inviting staff to join outdoor green activities and letting them feel “green” and enjoy the nature, which is encouraged by the Hotel, is an impressive approach. Thus, the environmentally-friendly concept can be assimilated among themselves. O'Neill (2018) proposed the same idea that having eco-friendly products and processes are not sufficient if employees do not practice them. Each staff member’s beliefs with regard to environmentally-friendly practices are the most significant. Hotels should offer training courses for their staff to conserve resources, which may be wasted otherwise ( Sourvinou and Filimonau, 2018 ; Chou, 2014 ).

5. Conclusion

Multiple environmentally-friendly strategies are applied in the housekeeping department of the sample Hotel. Firstly, the reuse and recycle policy is implemented. Several housekeeping staff members recycle the toilet amenities and plastic water drinking bottles. Secondly, the Hotel develops its own linen reuse programme for the guests and the staff. Thirdly, green concepts including the SDG strategies proposed by UNs for the enhancement of hardware and equipment should be introduced in the housekeeping department. These practices include the use of electronic key cards, low-flush toilets, destain powders and new vacuum machines. Green practices have brought various benefits to the Hotel in particular and the hotel industry in general based on various perspectives. These practices can help protect the environment by reducing waste generation and water and energy consumption. Furthermore, they can reduce the expenses of the Hotel and increase the efficiency of cleaning rooms. From the employees’ perspective, environmentally-friendly strategies can protect their health and significantly save their physical strength that was spent on cleaning. However, barriers that limits the effectiveness and thus reduces the benefits of green practices remain. For instance, the heavy workload of frontline employees is a reason why environmentally-friendly strategies cannot be successfully practiced. In addition, management issues, including the lack of enforcement and incomprehensible support policy, are also responsible for the ineffectiveness of the implementation of green practices.

All informants have agreed that housekeeping green practices contribute to the environmental sustainability strategies of sample Hotel as well as the hotel industry in Hong Kong at large. Multiple suggestions to address the limitations of green practices are provided by the frontline and the top management employees. Frontline employees believe that they would be further motivated if green practices provide convenience and rewards. Supervisors state that the management should start from the basics such as improving communication, creating decent jobs and raising the environmental awareness amongst employees. Green hotel initiatives should be operationally practical and sustainable to benefit the entire tourism industry. This study reveals the actual working environment in the housekeeping department of a hotel and the staff’s perception towards environmental sustainability strategies. In this study, one of the most significant findings reported that a difference has consistently existed between expected outcomes and actual results. Communication and mutual understanding between the top management and the frontline employees are the foundations that yield efficient housekeeping practices in hotels. Environmental sustainability is a continuous journey that requires on-going improvement in micro and macro levels within the hotel industry. In this study, we focussed on reviewing the implementation barriers and actual practices in the housekeeping department of a hotel, without examining other departments in the hotel industry. Green practices should be adopted for the whole tourism industry but not just the hotels themselves. How the green practices can be promoted to the entire tourism is worth for further studies.

Profile of respondents

*Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

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Corresponding author

About the authors.

Dr Monica Choy is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Management and Hospitality at the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong. Prior to embarking on her career in education, she acquired extensive business experience in the tourism and commercial sectors. She studied in China, Australia and Japan, and holds a BCom from the Curtin University of Technology, an MBA degree from the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales, an MSc in Hotel and Tourism Management from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and a DBA from the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include tourism management and human resources management issues. She has published various articles in journals, such as current issues in tourism.

Justin Cheng is a Former Instructor of the Division of Continuing Professional Education in Hong Kong Institute of Education (now The Hong Kong Education University). He has taught few courses on the use of English language. He also acted as an Editor for a number of books and journals in an international publishing house. Justin holds a master’s degree in Communication and New Media from City University of Hong Kong and a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary English Language from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Karl Yu holds a bachelor's degree in Hotel Operations Management from the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong, and is now an Industry Practitioner of an international hotel chain in Hong Kong.

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6 Key Challenges Facing Hotel Housekeeping Managers Today

2022 was a year of recovery for the hospitality industry. After years of lockdowns and travel restrictions, hotels are finally rebounding to pre-COVID levels of room occupancy and revenue. In fact, in their state of the hotel industry report , the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) revealed that hotel room revenue in 2022 climbed to $168.4 billion — only slightly less than 2019’s $169.6 billion. This upward trajectory has many industry experts anticipating a promising year for hospitality businesses in 2023. Although the hospitality sector has mostly returned to status quo, the post-COVID travel industry brings its own unique challenges that owners and managers will need to overcome — especially with their housekeeping services.

We’ve put together a list of key housekeeping challenges that our hospitality clients will be facing throughout 2023 — and some solutions to help your hotel thrive in this still-challenging market. 

Key Challenges for Housekeeping Staff in 2023

1. stringent cleaning and documentation requirements.

Hotel housekeeping is being scrutinized like never before. While heightened cleaning and documentation requirements aren’t new anymore, they aren’t going away anytime soon, which is proven by emerging health and cleaning policies. As a response to the pandemic, the AHLA released industry-wide hotel cleaning and safety guidelines , which detail the specific protocols hotel owners should follow to keep their guests and employees safe, even after COVID-19 infections have waned. The guide includes policies on disinfectants, indoor air quality, hand hygiene, and other measures that will keep hotels safe in the event of future health crises.

These new policies and expectations don’t come without their challenges. "Hotels are now required to follow brand mandated as well as city/state mandated cleanliness requirements," says Parminder Batra, CEO, TraknProtect . "In addition to their day-to-day duties, staff must also document and verify they have followed these requirements" ( Hospitality Tech ). The workload to keep all areas pristine — and document the process — is overwhelming to many housekeeping teams.  

2. Increasing Guest Expectations  

Going hand-in-hand with increased cleaning requirements, guests are also coming to your hotel with higher expectations for their stay than ever before. Even as the number of cases have dropped, consumer anxieties around cleanliness and hygiene have remained, especially in shared public spaces like hotels. One survey on public sentiments around handwashing found that 90% of Americans were concerned about washing their hands in 2020. In 2023, that percentage is still well above pre-COVID levels at 85%.

As such, guests expect rooms to be properly sanitized and disinfected prior to their arrival, and they expect common areas to be pristine. This is unlikely to change in the coming year. Because of this, housekeeping may be one of the most critical elements of your hotel’s brand reputation and customer loyalty.

3. Operational Challenges

Sky-high cleaning requirements and guest expectations are already difficult when you are fully staffed, but for many hotel managers, the staff shortage issues that began during the pandemic continue in 2023. This is creating operational challenges as absenteeism makes it all the more difficult to achieve daily housekeeping targets — which also puts additional burden and stress on your remaining staff. 

That’s why it’s important to have additional tools and resources at your disposal to keep up with demand. For example, implementing a commercial vacuum cleaner like Whiz from SoftBank Robotics can ensure that all shared areas are thoroughly cleaned every day, whether or not you are fully staffed. 

4. High Staff Turnover and Low Engagement

The combination of too much work and too little time isn’t just leading to burnout, it’s leading to extremely high rates of turnover . The hospitality industry as a whole already has the highest turnover rate in any industry at 86.3% , based on numbers from November 2022. On top of burnout, many of today’s workers leave the hotel industry due to a lack of employee engagement. Almost three out of five hotel employees say they experience a lack of professional development, and less than a third of employees feel a strong sense of belonging at work.

One way hotels can solve burnout and engagement issues is by deploying commercial cleaning robots alongside their staff to take on time-consuming tasks so that employees have the time and energy to focus on added disinfecting and sanitizing responsibilities without being overburdened. For example, vacuuming alone can take up to 30% of your team’s time. With robots on hand to offload these monotonous tasks, housekeeping managers can create more manageable workloads for staff, which in turns frees up employees to do more engaging work.

Read more: How to Prepare Cleaning Staff for Coworking Robot Vacuum Sweepers

5. Lack of Data

Do you know with absolute certainty what spaces in your hotel were cleaned and when? Can you quickly reference when the last time a particular space was vacuumed? Do you know whether your cleaning workflows are as efficient as they could be? Many housekeeping managers don’t have an easy way to access this type of data, and manual documentation is prone to error. But the more you know about your cleaning operations, the better your operation will become. SaaS applications for cleaning data, like Whiz Connect , can confirm cleaning and provide data-driven insights to help improve productivity and efficiency.

6. New Technology

Still, these commercial cleaning robots actually make the previous 5 key challenges facing hotel housekeeping managers a lot easier to manage — from facilitating higher quality and more consistent cleaning to helping your staff keep up with demand and customer expectations. They can also provide you with the data and documentation that you need to provide proof of cleanliness and optimize your cleaning workflows. 

Plus, cleaning robot vacuums don’t necessarily have to be a major cost, and many are easy to use without a steep learning curve. For example, Whiz, the commercial robot vacuum from SoftBank Robotics, is easy to get up and running quickly, provides intuitive and insightful user dashboards via the Whiz Connect software platform, and is available with flexible and cost-effective payment options. 

Contact us today to learn more about how Whiz can help you achieve your cleaning goals in 2023.

Written by SoftBank Robotics Team

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Home > THESES > 7143

Changes in employee turnover in housekeeping department of Rochester hotels: 1991 vs 1996 Case study

Hsiang-Mei Chien

As employee turnover is still one of the most critical issues facing the hospitality industry, the study is done to find out if reasons for employee turnover in housekeeping department among Rochester hotels have changed from Monica Tembi's 1991 study to 1996. A convenience sample was selected for this study. The survey population was 12 hotels and motels that are members of the Rochester Hotel and Motel Association. The questionnaire was designed by Monica Tembi and later approved by the Rochester Hotel and Motel Association. It is a four-page questionnaire. The data gathered and analyzed are used the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The imputed data are run frequency tables, groups t-test, cross-tabulated to analyze. The frequency tables are easy to compare between 1991 and 1996 results. The cross tabulations are to find out that if there are relationships among questions. The results show that there are some reasons for employee turnover in housekeeping department such as not having enough supplies and poor quality of supervision have been changed and improved. The poor wages and working on weekends are still major problems that the housekeepers indicated that would be dissatisfied with their job in turn to leave. Most respondents said that they have not had a promotion since they started working in their hotel. This factor is worse than 1991. Other findings and points are discussed in chapter three and four. Employee turnover can not be eliminated in service industry. However, it is important and necessary for hotels to develop or update strategies to reduce turnover and retain good employees.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Hotel housekeeping--Management--New York (State)--Rochester--Case studies; Labor turnover--New York (State)--Rochester--Case studies

Publication Date

Document type, department, program, or center.

School of Food, Hotel and Tourism Management (CAST)

Stockham, Edward

Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to RIT Scholar Works. Physical copy available through RIT's The Wallace Library at: TX911.3.L3 C48 1997

Recommended Citation

Chien, Hsiang-Mei, "Changes in employee turnover in housekeeping department of Rochester hotels: 1991 vs 1996 Case study" (1997). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from https://repository.rit.edu/theses/7143

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