Are the housekeepers still reporting clean rooms by radio? Housekeeping can work differently

What we hear when we sit down with operators

In sales meetings we often hear that housekeeping works well until something goes wrong. The room attendant cleans the room, calls the desk, the desk notes the status somewhere and the supervisor checks the room later. If the attendant finds a fault, they message maintenance or mention it to someone on the way. The information exists, but it is not certain it will not get lost.

In a larger hotel a simple room clean becomes a chain of communication. The desk needs to know whether it can assign the room to a guest. The housekeeping supervisor needs to know what is done and what is waiting for inspection. Maintenance needs to see the faults. The manager wants to know what repeats and how much work housekeeping actually consumes.

How Ellipse solves it

This is not one extra feature. What matters is that the steps follow one another and the same piece of data does not have to be entered again in every department.

The room status does not change by a phone call, but right at the room

The room attendant opens Ellipse Team on a phone, sees their rooms and changes the status when the clean is done. The desk sees that information without another phone call.

In a two-step process the room can move from “cleaned” to “inspected” only after the supervisor checks it. The hotel sets its own standard according to the type of operation.

Each type of clean can have its own procedure

A departure clean, a stayover clean or preparing a VIP room do not have to share the same checklist. Ellipse Team can put in front of the attendant the steps they should do for that type of clean.

The procedure can also include something specific to that room, for example checking a skylight, an extra bed or a piece of equipment that is easy to forget in the usual routine.

The fault is recorded where the person sees it

If the attendant finds a damaged wall, a light that does not work or a problem in the bathroom, they do not have to remember it until the end of the shift. Right on the phone they create a task, add a photo and assign it to maintenance.

Maintenance sees the open faults on its list. The manager sees which are new, assigned, resolved or waiting for material. A phone call becomes a task that can be traced.

Cleaning time is not a whip for people. It is an input into cost

Measuring how long each type of clean takes can help the hotel see the average labour of a departure room and a stayover room, the differences between room types, and plan staff more realistically.

An extreme does not have to mean weak performance. The attendant can add a note on why a particular room took longer. The aim should be a better plan and a cost view, not a blind comparison of people.