Housekeeping and the Front Office

     Within the rooms division, housekeeping's primary communications are with the front office department, specifically with the front desk area. At most properties, the front desk agent is not allowed to assign guestroom until the rooms have been cleaned, inspected, and released by the housekeeping department.  Typically, rooms are recycled for sale according to the following process.
     Each right, a front desk agent produces an occupancy report.  The occupancy report lists rooms occupied that night and indicates those guests expected to check out the following day.  The executive housekeeper picks up this list early the next morning and schedules the occupied rooms for cleaning.  As guests check out of the hotel, the front desk notifies housekeeping.  Housekeeping ensures the these rooms are given top priority so that clean rooms are available for arriving guests.
     At the end of the shift, the housekeeping department prepares a housekeeping status report based on a physical check of each room in the property.  This report indicates the current housekeeping status of each room.  It is compared to the front desk occupancy report, and any discrepancies are brought to the attention of the front office manager.  A room status discrepancy
is a situation in which the housekeeping department's description of a room's status differs from the room status information being used by the front desk to assign guestrooms.  Room status discrepancies can seriously affect a property's ability to satisfy guests and maximize rooms revenue.
     To ensure efficient rooming of guests, housekeeping and the front office must inform each other of changes in a room's status.  Knowing whether a room is occupied, vacant, on-change, out-of-order, or in some other condition is important to rooms management.  For example, if a guest checks out before the stated departure date, the front desk must notify the housekeeping department that the room is no longer a stay over, but is now a check out, While the guest is in the hotel, the housekeeping status of the guestroom changes several items.  However, not every room status will occur for each guestroom during every stay.
     Promptly notifying the front desk of the housekeeping status of rooms is a tremendous aid in getting early-arriving guests registered, especially during high-occupancy or sold-out periods. Keeping room status information up-to-date requires close coordination and cooperation between the front desk and the housekeeping department.  The two most common system for tracking current room status are mechanical room rack system and computerized status systems.
     The front desk may use a room rack to track the current housekeeping status of all rooms. A room rack slip containing the guest's name and other relevant information is normally completed during the registration process and placed in the room rack slot corresponding to the assigned room number.  The presence of a room rack slip indicates that the room is occupied.  When the guest checks out, the rack slip is removed and the room's status changed to on-change.  An on change status indicates that the room is in need of housekeeping services before it can be made available to arriving guests.  As unoccupied rooms are cleaned and inspected, the housekeeping department notifies the front desk, which updates the room's status to available for sale.
     Problem may also arise from communication delays between the housekeeping department and the front desk.  Communication between these areas may be spoken, written, or conveyed. Spoken communication over the telephone relays information quickly, but without supporting documentation. A written report has the advantage of documenting the information , but is time-consuming since  it must be hand-delivered. A telewriter, om the other hand, communicates and documents information quickly, without requiring anyone to be on its receiving end, Telewriters are especially helpful when front desk agents or housekeepers are busy with other responsibilities and do not have time to place a call or answer the telephone.
     In a computerized room status system, housekeeping and the front desk often have instantaneous access to room status information.  When a guest checks out , a front desk agent enters the departure into a computer terminal.  Housekeeping is then alerted that the room needs cleaning through a remote terminal located in the housekeeping department.  Next, housekeeping attendants clean the room and notify the housekeeping department when it is ready for inspection.  Once the room is inspected, housekeeping enters this information into its departmental terminal.  This informs the front office computer that the room is available for sale.
     While room occupancy status within a computerized system is almost always current, reporting of housekeeping status may lag behind.  For example, the housekeeping supervisor may inspect several rooms at once, but may not update the computer's room status files until the end of a long inspection round.  In a large operation, calling the housekeeping department after each room is inspected is generally inefficient, since answering the phone can be a constant interruption. A delays may also occur when a list of clean, inspected rooms is furnished to the housekeeping office but not immediately entered into the computer system.
     The problems in promptly reporting housekeeping status to the front office can be eliminated when the computer system is directly connected to the guestroom telephone system. With such a network, supervisors can inspect rooms,determine their readiness for sale, and then enter a designated code on the  room telephone to change the room's status in the hotel's computer system.  No one needs to answer the phone, since the computer automatically receives the relay, and there is little chance for error.  Within second, the room's update status can be displayed on the screen of a front desk computer terminal.  This procedure can significantly reduce not only the number of guests forced to wait for room assignment, but also the length of their wait.
     Teamwork between housekeeping and the front office is essential to daily hotel operations. The more familiar housekeeping and front office personnel are with each other's procedures, the smoother the relationship between the two departments is likely to be.