Hotel housekeeping - How we work

Our biggest emphasis is on teamwork. We spend time working with our teams to ensure a personal touch. We run extensive training programs in our training facility in London, and offer a good promotional structure to allow every individual the opportunity to grow. If people enjoy their jobs, it shows in their productivity and the quality achieved. 

You cannot ask a person to appreciate their job if they are not shown appreciation for the jobs they do! A smile to a guest from a member of staff is a smile that makes a guest stay again. 

Support 

We work very closely with the Housekeeping management to ensure that we are there to support them in their role. We act as a team to listen to what their goals are and then work with them to that end. 

We are ALL on call 24 hours a day 

Training 

This is a massive part of our company ethos. Our recruitment team would not place a room attendant into a hotel without minimum support and training expect them to achieve high quality. We have always believed in one to one training. 

For every New Client, we immediately place our dedicated trainer on the premises full time at no extra cost. Our trainer takes training first from the hotel key maids, supervisors and housekeeping manager. After that, our trainer can train the new starters independently, without affecting the housekeeping department operations.

This allows us to get to know any new staff we have and work with them individually to train them up to the highest standards. 

Regular monitoring and training are also given to floor supervisors. We spend time work shadowing them to see how they are checking rooms and will often run audits just after a room attendant has cleaned a room prior to the supervisor checking, to see what cleaning issues may arise and then going back into the room after the supervisor has checked the room to see if any issues found have been rectified. 

Every time we have new starters, our trainer will greet them upon arrival. Our trainer will then work with them cleaning rooms on a one to one basis, easing them in gently to ensure they are fully familiar with brand standards and room setups. We insist that all new starters are in training for a minimum of 3 days, at the end of which our trainer evaluates whether the trainee is ready to tackle rooms alone. 

Should either party feel that the trainee is not yet up to the standard required, one to one training will continue until both parties feel the trainee is fully competent in all aspects of cleaning. 

Once this is achieved, they are given a smaller number of rooms to clean than normal but with support and monitoring to help them increase their productivity until they can clean with the confidence and quality expected for the normal room rate. 

Promotion

Our employment agency has a strict policy on promotion. We always promote from within and in a caring policy to our staff to show that hard work and dedication will be recognized and rewarded with the ability to further their career within our company. 

We celebrate every month our Employee of the Month, based on productivity, ethics, and discipline. We had prizes in 2018, like 2 nights for two, flights & accommodation in Venice and Barcelona. We have monthly birthday card vouchers and more…

At Add Support, we believe that every individual that excels in their performance should be rewarded and we have always run a bonus system, closely linked with our audit process.

Training Managers 

Our team of Housekeeping Trainers is in place to ensure that they spend at least one full day a week at their designated hotel. They work closely with our Area Manager to give them any extra support they require. They and are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to deal with any issues that may arise. 

Our Trainers have housekeeping related background and, in all cases, commenced their employment with us as supervisors and housekeeping managers or executive housekeeper, working their way up, before being selected as Training Managers. They have gained experience, as to how to perform their role at every level allowing them to relate to each team member as appropriate. They are required to offer feedback weekly on how the staff is running, to listen to our client’s requests and ensure any such requests are implemented. 

They also hold monthly meetings with ALL our housekeeping staff (attended by our Senior Management) to run through all training issues and to help build a team ethos where our customers can network together and share their experiences. 

Health and Safety

We take Health and Safety very seriously and our staff is fully trained in COSH and Health and Safety aspects. We ensure that any members of staff using chemicals are trained in how to do safely and wear the appropriate safety gear. We also carry out risk assessments where necessary, should a female member of staff become pregnant. We carry full indemnity insurance and display a copy of this in the Housekeeping Office. We run the same process throughout the hotel and have our own audit sheets to monitor all the above to be in line with hotel brand standards. 

Internal Audits are carried out every fortnight on slightly different days and a chart is displayed with the results thereon in the housekeeping office. This is an important aspect to demonstrate that the level of cleaning and quality is being maintained. It also helps us to identify any room attendant or supervisor that has issues and requires further training. 

We would welcome a designated manager from the hotel to sit down with us on a weekly or fortnightly basis to enable us to show our findings (be them good or bad) and demonstrate to them a plan of action that we would draw up, to rectify any issues found. The purpose of the internal audit is not only to discover any cleaning or maintenance issues but to also highlight any need for further training. 

Transparency 

We use Brightpay Connect software for our payroll and HR administration, with the Android app Employee connected with our company website and application. 

Every employee has own login details and has access to his contract of employment, payslips, P60/P45, induction and health and safety documents.

The most important part is the Holiday and sickness Calendar, where everyone can track his holiday taken/remaining, can also send a request for holiday, or inform his line manager about sickness or day off. 

Legality 

The UK Border Agency and Immigration laws stipulate that a fine of up to £10,000 can be issued per employee found to be illegally working in any hotel.  

This is an onerous law and by using our services the risk is transferred to ourselves as we take over complete ownership in this respect. 

Our HR Consultant works closely with the Home Office to ensure that all documents are legal and correct visas, where applicable, are present and in date. However, if we hold any suspicions that a potential employee has false paperwork, we forward their details to the Home Office, who usually within 48 hours, let us know if the documents are legitimate or not. 

We ONLY employ those that are fully PAYE compliant and every week our pay run is submitted to HMRC to comply with RTI submissions as required by law 

We ensure that ALL employees have a national insurance number and check this out with Inland Revenue to ensure that the card is legitimate 

In the Housekeeping office, we place personnel files containing all employees’ records, which we also hold in our Head Office. 

Every General Manager will be given full access to all personnel files we hold on every individual that we employ within their hotel. If a General Manager wishes to see the originals of these documents to check that the copies on file are correct, the Area Manager will bring these in for inspection within 48 hours. 

As an employment agency, we put the emphasis on teamwork and quality and firmly believe that 

Add Support is the right choice for 4 and 5 stars hotels, and serviced apartments in London to take on as part of its housekeeping team. We place the emphasis on quality of jobs, staff and in our experience, this makes all the difference. 

We are the only company to pay a living wage, which in turn ensures our staff is the best to be found in the market. Our staff stays with us for the journey and this ensures that quality can be our focus. 

We are a company that aspires to show that respect and care of our employees is and always will be the key to achieve the highest standards in all areas of our jobs. 

Our unique systems on training and audits along with bonus payments to staff ensure that they continue to be of the very best quality. Furthermore, we absorb the additional costs ourselves and do not pass these on to our client. 

We believe that with our passion and knowledge, we will be able to match up to your mission statement and demonstrate it in the quality we can bring to your Premises. We understand your business to the core and work hard to reflect your values in our work. 

By maintaining too high standards, we ensure maximum guest retention thus protecting your investments. 

Because we build housekeeping teams and ensure that our staff blends in with your team so well, that you’ll forget that our staff is an employment agency staff.

We are proud of the teams we grow at Add Support and that is why we know that we can offer you a five-star service, that never lets you down.