Best Practices for Cleaning Hotels

Hotels in the United States generate billions of dollars every year. According to data from STR Analytics, in 2014, the industry reached US$176 billion in revenue, an increase of nearly $14 billion from 2013 and an all-time high.

The following are some of the best practices for getting the job done, and advice on how to properly train.

Challenges of Cleaning Hotels

Hotels are unique.They operate on a different schedule, never actually close for the day, and people are constantly going in and out of them. Timing is also a challenge in terms of scheduling services due to hotel guests’ unpredictable schedules.

Finding a company who want to work for your team long term can prove to be difficult as well, turnover in the housekeeping department can be exceedingly high.

How to Clean and Service Hotels

We know how to deal with the challenges of working in the hospitality industry, lets dive into the day-in and day-out cleaning practices.

Hotel Rooms

Before starting any hotel job, we will do an inspection of every room on each floor. Then, after each job that’s completed, “the cleaner reports to management to ensure the job is done to the hotel’s standard. Each hotel room is double checked to ensure satisfaction.”

The cleaners, will use supplies to clean guest rooms just as they do to clean offices. This includes disinfectant, germicide, microfiber cloths, and backpack vacuums. The only difference, is in how you organize each room’s linens, such as pillows and sheets. We learn the standard for the particular hotel and clean to their standard.

Common Areas and General Cleaning

To ensure that our team cleans a hotel’s common area bathrooms—such as the ones in the lobby—for health as well as aesthetics, they utilize “professional commercial-grade disinfectants [and] color-coded microfiber towels to prevent cross contamination.” For general cleaning throughout the rooms and public areas of the hotel, cleaners will use automatic scrubbers, carpet extractors and encapsulators, escalator cleaners, burnishers, high-volume wet/dry vacuums, grit brushes, and controlled splashing floor washing machines.

Hotel Kitchens

To clean kitchens in a safe and effective manner,our team will scale back on the amount of chemicals and water they use. “Modern, high-tech kitchen equipment (ovens, fryers, grills and kettles) adds a unique set of challenges because they contain expensive computers and motherboards and highly technical switching devices. Gone are the days of pressure washing or even water hosing down kitchens. Limited, controlled water and chemicals use is mandatory to prevent damage to this expensive equipment.

Training Cleaners for Safety and Customer Service

Since cleaners don’t have the luxury of working after hours while no occupants are around, they are informed about interacting with customers and upholding safety standards.

Our focus is on hiring and training employees both behind the scenes and after hours.

Additionally, safety and slip resistance is also important. Depending on the hotel, there may be floors, walkways, pools and spas, kitchens, fitness centers, and other public areas to consider. To avoid slips and falls, our team displays wet floor signs while cleaning and after the job is done until the floors are completely dry.

In terms of speaking with the guests,the cleaners are trained to be polite with every guest. Every guest has a different attitude towards the cleaners.

We tell them good morning, good afternoon and good night. Some hotels use different methods, and we train our staff to meet the goals of the hotel.

Above all, we realize our staff is the face of the hotel, even though they may represent a different company on paper. We must make sure we're able to meet and even exceed our clients’ expectations at all times.