Keep Your Hotel Spic and Span

Sandra Dean was this year’s runner up in the AA Housekeeper of the Year Awards. She manages a team of 13 at the Casa Hotel in Chesterfield and has a genuine passion for cleaning

What did the AA competition involve?

We had to complete two detailed questionnaires. The first one about my role within the hotel, what I do and why I should win. Then the second came when I was shortlisted and it discussed what I did to encourage my staff and how housekeeping was a great career for me. When I found out that I had been awarded the runner-up accolade, I was overwhelmed. I never expected to even get shortlisted as I have only been in the position of housekeeping manager for just a short period of time. However, I would not have been able to win the award without the support of my fantastic team.

What are your key areas of responsibility at Casa?

Primarily I have to manage and follow the established four-star standards of quality for all housekeeping services provided at the hotel. This includes room cleaning, common area cleaning, deep cleaning, laundry, turn-down and ensuring high standards by conducting continual inspections of these areas.

It’s also a major part of my job to provide staff feedback, test new products, review staff member’s work and give refresher training where needed. It’s also vital that I use the policies and procedures established by the management team in terms of hiring, training, developing and promoting staff.

I also have to inspect and evaluate the physical condition of every room, suite and all furnishing and amenities therein, as well as common areas, inventory storage and laundry facilities. I have to ensure that the property is kept secure and maintain an accurate inventory and ordering system that is frequently reviewed by the finance department.

I’m always delighted when we receive notes of thanks, TripAdvisor reviews and comments on the perfection of the rooms. I ensure the quality by inspecting each of the 100 rooms myself. If they are not up to standard I will send the member of the team responsible back in to reassess the space. In addition to the bedrooms, I also manage the front of house team who ensure all the public areas are kept to the same standard as the bedrooms.

What would you say makes a great housekeeper?

A housekeeper must be methodical, have stamina and a genuine passion for cleaning. This job is hard, and can be long when you are very busy. Housekeeping assistants must be methodical with an eye for detail because they do not have time to keep returning to rooms to fix mistakes. I personally provide my girls with constant feedback. I’m not afraid to send them back to a room to redo if it does not reach the standards required.

Staff need stamina because the days can be long, and a passion for cleaning – bordering on obsession – is the only reason why housekeeping assistants do what they do.

The wow factor is the most important thing for me. I want guests to walk into a room and really be impressed with how spotless and perfect it looks. I am happy to say that we achieve this at Casa. It is all about creating the impression to guests that the room has been prepared for them personally.

How do you approach each room you clean?

The system that housekeeping work by is that the rooms that have departures followed byarrivals must be cleaned first, followed by rooms that are occupied for multiple nights and ending with the departure rooms that will not be occupied that night. All rooms are then checked to see if they are up to standard, and if not the room attendant is asked to return to the room and put right any mistakes.

I always place new members of staff with the strongest cleaner to undertake have four days training to see exactly how things should be done. They will do two days on bedrooms and two days on bathrooms and at the end of this four-day period they will do a room on their own so that I can see if they are up to our standard. If they then get the green light, the fifth day will see them start cleaning their own rooms. It can happen that the new member of staff is not ready to complete rooms alone even after this time, so I then look into the areas where they need more training and give them a couple more days with a experienced member of staff.

How do you keep your team motivated and emphasise the importance of high standards?

I say thank you to every single member of my staff at the end of every shift they do. I hold communication meetings where I provide them with feedback and I give each team member constant praise on a daily basis. I think that this shows in their work and the evidence is the numerous TripAdvisor reviews that mention the cleanliness of the hotel.