While wages and materials are monthly expenses that can be budgeted, the
equipment needed to start an in-house cleaning program is a capital expense that
occurs all at once. (Nitschke & Frye 2008, p.237.) This means the cost of buying
equipment to start up an internal housekeeping department can be quite high
depending on the size of the hotel in question. The machinery needed will be
washing machines and drying machines to wash the housekeepers’ dirty cleaning
cloths at the end of the day. Different kinds of cleaning materials need to be
purchased including products used to disinfect and clean the rooms. Cleaning
carriages, buckets, brushes and other equipment need to be bought regularly so
as to replace the worn and torn old ones.
An internal hotel housekeeping department has to make changes according to the
flow of guests in the hotel. During peak season the increase of employees is
necessary and in off season the reduction of staff is essential. This means that
contracts are very varied and it is very rare that employees these days have full
contract hours due to the fluctuating nature of the business.
3.4 Outsourced housekeeping
Outsourced cleaning companies in Finland have got a bad reputation amongst
workers. This is because of the way that they do business; their focus is primarily
on fast, effective cleaning with extremely tight timeframes. The job is physically
very demanding and results in a lot of strain on the body. Housekeeping service
providers tend to think more about the profit the company can make than the
wellbeing of their staff. According to Quelin and Duhamel (2003) in Jones & Pizam
(2008, p.197) outsourcing normally involves a transfer of assets and possible staff
from the outsourcing organization to the external suppliers. This is shown in the
employee turnover rates, especially in the hospitality industry when uncertain
fluctuations of occupancy combined with outsourcing can lead to job losses.
When outsourcing the housekeeping department the hotel has to determine many
things before even starting the process. The first of which is to find out what needs
to be outsourced.
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When using outsourced housekeeping the scope of the housekeeping duties is
determined by both the outsourcing company and the hotel together. They draw up
an agreement between each other on what part of the housekeeping is to be taken
care of during the working day. Sometimes a company can have a monthly fee for
the hotels and certain areas of what has been agreed on in the contract are
included in that price. When some extra task is taken care of then the permission
needs to be asked from the hotel representative before undertaking the task.
Sometimes contracts are based on what is used, so by how many rooms are
cleaned. These are billed by the amount and any extra done, let’s say a hotel
customer leaves a day earlier than planned the housekeeper will clean the room
but a little extra will be billed for the extra room. In outsourcing everything has a
price, from washing the floors to cleaning the windows as not everything is
included in the agreement between the two.
Outsourcing can be very profitable business as almost everything can be cleaned
by the outsourcing company. For example the basic cleaning of the bathroom
which is performed every year is billed as additional costs. The same goes for
washing of the windows or taking down the curtains, which are then washed
somewhere else is billed by the hour. The hotels even ask for offers on certain jobs
so that they also can keep a check on the costs.