Top executive must plan what the hotel is to accomplish by defining its objectives. The desire to attain these objectives leads to organizing, coordinating, and staffing activities. Once members of the hotel staff are selected, management can direct the course of their work and implement control systems to protect the hotel's assets and to ensure smooth, efficient operating activities. Finally, management must evaluate the extent to which the objectives of the organizing have been attained. An analysis of actual operating results my lead to changes in organizing, coordinating, or staffing procedures. Also as a result of evaluating all planning and operating activities, management may find that revisions to the organization's plans or objectives are needed.
An important planning activity of the executive housekeeper is drafting the housekeeping department's operating budget estimates expenses of the department for the upcoming year. Expenses include labor, linens, laundry operation, cleaning compounds, some types of equipment, and other supplies. Initial expenses estimates are bases on information supplied by the accounting department. This information includes expense reports for months of the past year and for the current year as well as monthly occupancy forecasts for the upcoming year.
The executive housekeeper's initial expense estimates are revised by top management executives in relation to the overall financial objectives of the hotel for the upcoming year. The hotel's owner, general manager, and controller coordinate and finalize the annual operating budget for the entire hotel, The resulting budget presents the executive housekeeper ( and every other department manger ) with a month-by-month plan by which to organize, coordinate, staff, direct, control, and evaluate operations.
Although specific management tasks vary from one management position to another, the same fundamental management functions are carried out by every manager within a hotel. Previous sections of this chapter focused on planning and organizing activities of the executive housekeeper. The following sections briefly examine the executive housekeeper's management responsibilities in the areas of coordinating, staffing, controlling, and evaluating the operation of the housekeeping department.
Coordinating and Staffing
Coordinating is the management function of implementing the results of planning and organizing at the level of daily housekeeping activities. Each day, the executive housekeeper must coordinate schedules and work assignments and ensure that the proper equipment, cleaning supplies, linens, and other supplies are on hand for employees to carry out their assignments.
Staffing involves recruiting applicants, selecting those best qualified to fill open positions, and scheduling employees to work. Since labor is housekeeping's largest expense item, properly scheduling employees is one of the most important management responsibilities of the executive housekeeper.
Most housekeeping departments use some type of staffing guidelines. These guidelines are usually based on formulas which are used to calculate the number of employees required to meet operational needs at specific occupancy levels. However, the management function of staffing goes beyond simply applying a formula. Staffing must be adequate to meet the general ( or deep ) cleaning schedules for various areas of the hotel and to meet the needs of other special cleaning projects. Therefore, the executive housekeeper must be flexible and creative when establishing staffing patterns that permit the department to reach its goals within the limits of the budget plan.
Directing and Controlling
Many people confuse the two very different management functions of directing and controlling. The easiest way to distinguish them is to remember that managers direct people and control thongs.
Directing is a complicated management skill which is exercised in a wide variety of situations. For an executive housekeeper, directing involves supervising, motivating, training, and disciplining individual who work in the department. Motivating the housekeeping staff is a particularly important skill and is closely connected with the executive housekeeper's ability to lead the department. Motivation ( or the lack of it ) is contagious. Attitudes and work habits filter down to employees from their supervisors. The attitudes and work habits of supervisors are usually a reflection of the leadership provided by the executive housekeeper. A strong executive housekeeper personally expresses a genuine interest in everyone's performance and, thereby, creates an atmosphere in which motivation can thrive. On the other hand, an executive housekeeper who plays favorites with supervisors will find discontent everywhere as supervisors, in turn, play favorites with employees under their direction.
Controlling refers to the executive housekeeper's responsibility to devise and implement procedures which protect the hotel's assets. Assets are anything the hotel owns which has commercial or exchange value. An Executive Housekeeper helps safeguard the hotel's assets by implementing control procedures for keys, linens, supplies, equipment, and other items.
Evaluating
Evaluating is the management function of assessing the extent to which planned goals are, in fact, attained. Important evaluation tools for all managers in a hotel are monthly budget reports prepared by the hotel's accounting staff. These reports provide timely information for evaluating housekeeping operations, especially the department's monthly labor expense. The executive housekeeper uses these reports to compare actual departmental expenses to amounts estimated by the budget plan. Significant differences between actual amounts and budgeted amounts are called variances. Significant variances may require further analysis and action by the executive housekeeper.
In addition, the executive housekeeper needs information on a daily and weekly basis in order to closely evaluate the performance of the staff and the overall productivity of the department. Evaluation in these areas begins with performance and productivity standards developed by earlier plants. Daily inspection reports and quarterly performance evaluations are used to monitor how well the actual performance of employees compares with performance and productivity standards.
