Theme 7: A New Technology Phenomenon at Work
Although the idea of using tablets at work seemed to be neutralized nowadays, it
was still considered to be a new phenomenon in manual labour work such as housekeeping.
Most of them came to terms with using the iPad with Serviator without
much surprise, but some realized their first impression on their first day.
It was a bit shock when I saw the tablet on the first day work, like “why
do we have that here?” Then I understood it and it’s good.
Along with the experience with Serviator during the time working at the hotel, some
housekeepers showed their related expectations in the future. Most of them were
optimism, carrying a number of hopes in improvement in the application functions
and the possible minimization of technical issues.
Maybe it could have the things that we have on the papers, like you
could write your name on the tablet also, that would be nice, and the
extra beds in the tablet also so we don’t need the papers anymore.
In addition, one housekeeper expressed her aspiration of the application possibility
for expansion in the future, as “I’m not sure which kind of program they have in
other hotels but I think Servitor is very useful and I hope I could see it in other hotels
too.”
6 Discussion
In this study, housekeepers having experience of the housekeeping application
Serviator focused on the feeling of easiness and simplicity when they were using the
application including its setback when the program was not functioning as expected.
The initial response was their first impression of the easy and simple interaction,
even though most found it hard to recall and describe in details. Housekeepers seem
to focus on the autonomy of the cleaning work rather than paying attention to the
application characteristics and critically think about the pivotal role of the program in
their work. A few housekeepers only had a vague opinion of the established
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connection between housekeepers and other departments thanks to the application,
only assuming that workers from other departments such as reception and
maintenance could see the information on the application as they did. Moreover,
there was a lack of housekeepers’ interest in expecting feature improvement of the
program that would actually be beneficial to their work even though most
housekeepers figured out that there were some parts of the program that could be
fixed and enhanced to meet their work characteristics.
More importantly, the application failed to fulfill some needs of the housekeeping
management. This might be due to the IT Company and their limited knowledge of
the housekeeping process and management that caused a gap. It is commonly
known as service quality gap, in which the IT Company does not have adequate
knowledge of the nature of housekeeping management. In terms of a housekeeping
job, it is hard and labour demanding work in which the workers’ productivity is key.
Workload division and individual productivity monitoring play such a critical role in
housekeeping management. The lack of understanding this resulted in a gap in their
service provision in the program for the management process of the housekeepers.
Another finding in this study was discovered in the course of the author’s
observation and partly revealed in the interviews. As mentioned previously, the
housekeeping application has five main functions, in which the “VIP Rooms” feature
was not in use. The “VIP-Room” feature is capable of storing information of the
guests’ special requests such as extra beds, baby beds, allergy notices, etc. Although
such an important and useful feature has been considered, it was not fully exploited
in the hotel. Currently, the task division papers were used in order to inform those
requests to housekeepers for them to prepare for the rooms accordingly. The
reasons for not utilizing the feature remained unclear.
In conclusion, the thesis explained the impression and experience of the
housekeepers using the housekeeping application on tablets. It was not only
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essentially contributed to other information technology development researches in
terms of applying new technology devices and programs in the workplace, but also
critically revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the application. The paper
version proved that the housekeeping application Serviator was a new technology
phenomenon at work. Nevertheless, it was essentially indispensable and meaningful
to assist planning, organizing and controlling the work. It was regarded as simple and
easy to use, providing a great deal of information about the rooms and their
conditions apart from serving as a communication tool among the hotel
departments. Ultimately, it was a program with its downsides such as technical and
feature problems. The technical problem was the disruption in communication while
the feature problems related to room information control and housekeeping
manageme