Cleanliness – Is There Anything More Important?

Cleanliness, directly, or indirectly, comes up every day in our business, and it’s not surprising.  Is there anything more fundamentally important to our guests than cleanliness?

In my recent post; “Hotel Fundamentals . . . Since the Beginning of Time,” it didn’t make the list, as I chose to speak about the key components that I believe that everyone is looking for in a hotel experience, but in hindsight, it would be fair to say that I missed an underpinning value, or assumption on the part of the client, that you could argue is on the top of the list of requirements or expectations of our guests – all of our guests.

Look at how much coverage the recent top 10 dirtiest hotels in America list, as identified by Trip Advisor, has seen in the last few weeks, since it was first publicized, and of course the topic of bed bugs seems to come up again and again, just when it seems to be fading to the background.

It is somewhat unfortunate, and unfair, that some hotels that have found themselves at the source of bed bug stories have been labelled as “unclean” as a result, especially when you consider that the issue of bed bugs is completely out of the hands of the hotelier, and NOT necessarily a factor of their commitment to cleanliness.  You can have the cleanest hotel in the world one moment, and be seen as “unclean” moments later, based on some unsuspecting guest having brought bed bugs into your hotel, riding in their luggage.

That said, hotels can and must at this point, have a detailed and extensive inspection program in place to compliment their commitment to cleanliness.

And it’s not enough to have clean guest rooms and public spaces if the back, or heart of the house, is not of equal importance to you, when it comes to the topic of cleanliness.

I can still remember, many years ago when I was working as a department manager within a hotel, when my General Manager had a conversation with me about cleanliness that has stuck with me for the rest of my career.

I found myself at a property where there had been a consider lack of funds injected into the property for some time, and when money was made available to address any shortcomings, the emphasis was always on the front of the house, areas where the guests would access and could easily see if things were unclean and/or in a state of disrepair.  As a result, the team at the hotel had become somewhat resigned to the fact that the heart of the house did not reflect the same level of the commitment to cleanliness as did the front of the house. 

It was shortly after the new General Manager arrived and I was touring him around the property that he shared his simple but profound philosophy with me on the subject of cleanliness and the importance of an equal emphasis on cleanliness or the front AND heart of the house.

How, he asked me, can we expect the employees to feel proud of what they do if we are not equally proud of our surroundings?  How, can we expect the employees to believe in our commitment to cleanliness, (on behalf of our guests), when our commitment is not evident within our own areas and in how they are treated?  We cannot expect our employees to flip a switch whenever they cross from the heart of the house to the front of the house and suddenly start to care about cleanliness, simply as a result of having crossed that threshold.

We met regularly after that as we crafted a plan to address every area of the heart of the house and raise the standard of cleanliness with the intent of achieving a level of cleanliness that rivalled a hospital corridor, and once achieved, to maintain that level of cleanliness, all on a cost-effective basis.

It was one of the projects that I am most proud of in my career, as we worked to raise the standards for our employees, and, as I saw the definitive difference in the attitude of our employees as they saw that we clearly valued them, and in so doing, were committed to providing them with a work environment that reflected that value and commitment. 

You could feel the level of pride and engagement rising up, and our guest service scores reflected that pride and steadily rose as well, as did our revenue stream.  It was one the earliest and most memorable demonstrations that I witnessed of the positive impact of treating your employees with a level of respect and value that you would readily provide to your guests, and seeing the positive results that follow when that becomes a commitment within your organization.

The other thing that I would have to credit this General Manager for teaching me along the way was the ability to get a lot done with a little money, depending on how you get things done, and that a shortage of funds does not necessarily need to dictate your surroundings.  He was very creative about ways to make an impact that our employees could see and value that didn’t necessarily costs a lot, but they produced results far in excess of what little they did cost. 

Not surprisingly, he went on to greater leadership roles within that company and helped to raise the level of standards throughout the company as a result.

Is your hotel as clean as it should be, in both the front AND heart of the house?

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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Public Washrooms – Flush with Opportunity

Picture it, you’re walking through a Hotel, or, maybe you’ve just had a drink in the bar, and you decide that you need to use the washroom.

You push back the entry door and one of two things happen.

      1.       You are hit, smacked in the face, with the sharp contrast between the beautiful lobby (or bar/restaurant) that you were just in and this excuse for a “public space,” or,

      2.       You are reassured by the continuation of the commitment to quality, to cleanliness, that is evident in every noticeable feature that catches your eye as you enter.

I don’t know about you, but I want to experience #2 when I enter a Hotel washroom, and so I should.

Operators need to ensure that public washrooms are well thought out and prioritized during the design phase or during any renovations programs that are contemplated along the way.

Far too often, these areas, out of sight for the most part, are forgotten or pushed to the back of the list during renovations, and as a result, they end up falling short of your brand promise or commitment.

The same holds true for your restaurant/bar washrooms if in fact they are separate from your main lobby washrooms.

I always draw a conclusion from what I see in the washrooms to what I expect to experience in a restaurant or bar, whether part of a Hotel, or simply as a stand-alone restaurant or bar, and I have yet to go out with a woman who has not returned from a trip to the washroom with some comment about the “state of affairs” behind those closed doors and how that might translate into their commitment to cleanliness or overall quality.

As I have been no doubt guilty of repeating all too often, a Hotel should be treated like your home, it should be a reflection of what you would do in your home, for guests, to, in this case, make a space feel warm and inviting, and of course clean, with an attention to detail.

So take a few extra minutes, and spend a few extra dollars, and throw in a few little touches, like attractive tissue containers on the vanities, to cover up those institutional looking Kleenex boxes – something that compliments the colours in the washroom.

Maybe a couple of lotion pumps or decorative hand soap dispensers.

Personally, I like to go to a local home decor shop and look for unique individual items that will reflect that someone made an effort to personalize this space, rather than having picked out the accessories from the local restaurant or Hotel supply catalogue.

And last, but certainly not least, make sure that there is a diligent program in place to have these spaces checked OFTEN. Nothing is worse than going into a washroom where it looks like a bomb just went off, and it is clear that no one has bothered to check this space in some time. 

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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Triple Sheeting vs. Bed Bugs

There has been a lot of press lately, again, on the “bed bug situation.”

Don’t get me started on how disgusting bed bugs are and the harm that they can do, to the individual affected, for sure.  But also to the poor unsuspecting Hotelier, who may have been doing all the right things to prevent a bed bug infestation, only to have someone bring them in in their luggage, and leave them behind for the next lucky guest.

As disgusting as we will all agree that bed bugs are, it strikes me odd that we only seem to focus on the extreme cases of what we associate with a lack of cleanliness, like bed bugs, but no one seems to be concerned with the every day occurrences that go on right under our unsuspecting noses.

Case in point – triple sheeting, or more importantly, the lack thereof.

Anyone who has EVER worked in a Hotel knows that duvets, or heaven forbid, bed spreads, are not cleaned after every guest.  

Far from it, in fact, bed spreads in Hotels that actually still use them, are almost never cleaned.  Maybe, just maybe, they are cleaned as part of an annual “deep clean” program that the Hotel has, but don’t count on it, especially among Hotels that are trying to minimize their costs, to the extreme, with little or no concern for their guests’ health and well-being.

Believing instead in the tried and true motto of; “what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

And duvets, or duvet covers, are similarly cleaned very irregularly, and certainly not after every stay.

So here’s the question then?

What do you want next to your skin when you have curled up for the night in your warm (Hotel) bed?

Some cootie infested bed spread or duvet cover that is harbouring more germs than the toilet seat, or, a nice fresh 3^rd sheet, put in place for the express purpose of keeping you and your cooties from coming in contact with the bed spread or duvet cover, and leaving your germs, to join everyone else’s?

There is only one answer for me – bring on the triple sheeting.

And yet, for some reason this topic never comes up?

I suspect it is because of a couple of factors:

      1.    A great many of the average consumers actually believe that the duvet cover (or bed spread) is changed out after every use, and,

   

      2.      The room “appears” clean.  You walk in and everything looks all perfectly placed, there is (hopefully) no dust to be seen, there is (again hopefully) no hairs floating around the bathroom, and, the room smells clean – ergo it must be clean.

All I can say, is don’t count on it.

It’s not that the majority of Hotel companies don’t care about cleanliness, because they do.

However, it just isn’t practical to remove the duvet cover after every use to have it cleaned.  The increased labour cost, just for starters, would cut into productivity and profitability.  Then add in the additional cleaning costs, the need for increased inventory and higher replacement costs due to increased wear and tear, and it’s not hard to see why Hotels do not change out the duvet cover after every use.

That said, that does not excuse the need for cleanliness, and to me, that’s where the need for triple sheeting comes in.  Where triple sheeting was once viewed as a luxury to be found at only the best (and usually more expensive) Hotels, it is now a necessity, which as a result, should be found at every reputable Hotel.

Bottom line – don’t accept anything less.  You’re paying for cleanliness, you should get what you paid for. 

Need an experienced hospitality professional to help your property reach its full potential?  Contact me.

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