[box type=”shadow” ]Housekeeping majorly involves service delivery, manpower management and technology. Technology takes housekeeping to a whole new level, making cleaning 10- 20 times faster and managing manpower productively and effectively. Today, it is the ‘internet of things’ which makes all the difference. Suprita Anupam brings you an account on electronic housekeeping[/box]
Mobile phone is perhaps the only device that one carries on the go. It pays bills, controls TVs, refrigerators, ACs… enables shopping and does almost everything… even housekeeping!
Housekeeping mobile apps can change the way of cleaning. Nabeel Saeed, Product Marketing Manager- Vertical Systems, Silicon Valley based company that provides sophisticated solutions for the hospitality says, “For a vast majority of hotels today, room inspections are a manual process. A pre-designed paper form is completed over the weekend or by month-end or perhaps never. This document becomes part of a property-wide report. Data is often reviewed in historical context rather than as a real time management tool. Corrective measures are more meaningful when addressed now, rather than later. This “paper chase” process is tedious and does not provide management the tools to effectively manage housekeeping. There are no benchmark standards for the number of inspections completed nor is there an effective mechanism to provide real time feedback to room attendants who might require corrective actions.”
Well, what’s more apps can do?
The housekeeping Apps do real time monitoring and control all the activities, help save time and increase efficiency by eliminating day-to-day double entries and providing useful information via mobile device regardless of the location.
Among the numerous functions, a Housekeeping App must have the below basic functions:
Creating new work order tasks- Providing an alternate & mobile platform to all the paper works, be it assigning a task to a team or signing a contract with a client. This saves plethora of time.
- Tracking the available team, assigning the nearest available team.
- Recording the staff productivity at one place
- GPS enabled monitoring of janitors/workers
- Updating all the tasks to each and every individual on real-time basis
- Push notifications to alert staff on an immediate basis
- Machines tracking, their efficiency and fuel/battery level
Some of the advanced apps do score over others by:
- Enabling customers track their cleanliness & hygiene level in all the spaces in real time, track all tasks, unassigned tasks, or completed tasks
- Enabling Clients to send interrupt commands in specific circumstances
- Ability to run troubleshoot program if machines stop working
- sorting tasks by proximity, priority, or due date
The new emerging apps are actually capable of doing much more. The ability to let machines do the talk, to assign humans tasks automatically, to calculate the machine cum worker’s productivity and inculcate future instructions accordingly, will change the game of hide and seek between vendors and clients, and between workers and managers.
[box type=”shadow” ]“A housekeeping app eliminates the need for paper reporting and streamlines the availability of information and decision making.”[/box]
The apps can have the ability to show live videos of works being done in remote areas that help managers and supervisors control a bigger premise and troubleshoot on the go. “The hospitality industry is facing several challenges such as shortage of labour and skills, delivering to match expectations, striving to keep pace with the changing system of global distribution, ensuring consistent delivery as per the brand promise and so on. The key in the hospitality business is to deploy right software tools to minimize risk management and make guests feel comfortable and safe. The apps help you achieve the key objectives for your organization, whether your goals are revenue growth, expense control, improved decision-making in support of strategic planning, increased productivity, financial and regulatory compliance or sustainability,” says Vaneeta Arora, Director-Housekeeping, The Park Hotel.
