The Housekeeping Control Desk used in hotel is the central hub of the housekeeping
department. This is the area in the department where all information is
received and from where messages are conveyed to housekeeping and other
staff present in various parts of the hotel. Thus, the control desk may
be considered the nerve centre for to – and – fro communication in the
housekeeping department. one of the main functions of the control desk
is ensuring smooth coordination between housekeeping and other
departments such as maintenance, front office, food and beverages,
security, sales and marketing and so on.
The location of control desk is normally adjacent to the Executive
Housekeeper’s office. This desk is manned 24- hours otherwise the
lifeline of housekeeping communication would stop.
Role of housekeeping control desk:
- The role of the housekeeping control desk is to facilitate
communication to various parts of hotel. this role can be exercised in
many forms which are as follows;
- The control desk receives messages from in house guests over the
telephone apart from maintaining the intra and inter –departmental
channels of communication. hotel room directories provide the control
desk extension number to the guests which they can use if they require
housekeeping services.
- The control desk attendant receives all the message of the guests
such as a request for extra blankets, baby-sitter services, which she
transmit to the concerned floor supervisor for further action.
- Front office also alerts the desk attendant about the expected and
existing crews in the house. So that the rooms can be make ready for the
new arriving crew after the departure of existing crew in a very short
period of time.
- In most of the hotels, this is the area where housekeeping
employees; report for work; collect keys and signing for them; persue
the log book get their briefing and at the end of their shift, report
back to.
- Its is the control room attendants who receives departure room
numbers from the front office and transmits them to the appropriate
floor supervisor.
- The floor supervisor informs the desk attendant once rooms are
cleaned and ready for sale and this is updated in the computer so that
front office can easily obtain the information o f the status of room.
- The main physical feature visible in most control desk is the key
cabinet. On the wall, where all floor masters keys and store keys are
kept under lock and key themselves.
- Another common feature here is a large notice board displaying notices like
- Room numbers of the groups in the house
- Room numbers of crews in the house
- Night cleaning schedule
- VIPs in the house
- Weekly cleaning schedules
- Daily roster of supervisors and staff
- Any other significant information relating to in-house guest or the hotel staff.
10. One of the most important roles of the control desk is
maintaining various important records, registers, forms and formats so
that they are available and easily accessible for reference to managers
and supervisors.
Relationship with Front Desk:
The control desk acts as the nerve centre for coordination with the
other departments in the hotel. the control desk attendants receives the
night report, the arrivals and departures list, VIP list , and the list
of crews and groups in the house from the front office. Based on these
documents, the housekeeping department schedules the workers for
cleaning, maintenance and servicing of guestrooms and related areas.
- To ensure efficient rooming of guests, both housekeeping and front
office must inform each other of changes in a room’s status. Knowing
whether a room is occupied, vacant, on change, out of order (OOO), under
repair, or similar for proper room management
- There should be coordination to clean front office public areas
- There must be coordination between housekeeping and front office
department to share information on occupancy levels which helps to
forecast occupancy for the year and makes it easier to draw up a budget,
establish par stock levels and estimate required staff strength.
- There should be coordination know about the daily room report and housekeeping discrepancy report.
- It also helps to gear renovations and spring cleaning to low occupancy periods there by preventing loss of revenue.
- The housekeeping and front office department also coordinate with
each other for other important information which require special
attention like
- Night report:
this report,
prepared each night by front desk attendant, indicates the rooms
occupied that night and ones that are to become check-outs the following
day. Based on this report, the executive or assistant housekeeper
schedules employees for servicing these rooms. Once the rooms have been
cleaned and made ready, the floor supervisor calls the control desk or
the front desk directly, releasing the room for sale.
- VIPs in house:
this information is essential so
that the staff can take a little extra care and keener precautions in
cleaning and supervising VIP rooms.housekeeping can take extra care in
cleaning the VIP rooms by equipping the rooms with additional amenities
as per the policy of the management. These amenities can be; bathrobe;
bath slippers; extra soaps; hangers; and glass tumblers.
- Groups in the house
: the group rooming list must be
provided before the group’s arrival to the housekeeping as groups tends
to move together in terms of arrival, departure, sightseeing tours and
meals. Their rooms need to be readied together in view of strict time
parameters. Group rooming lists enable the hk department to organize
their work and have the group’s room ready on time.
10. Crews in the house: Sometimes the arrival of a
crew and the departure of another crew from the same airline may
overlap. In such circumstances, it is important for the allotted rooms
to be cleaned within a short period of time. Thus for this there should
be a effective coordination between front office and housekeeping.
11. Flowers: sometimes the management extends its
compliments to a guest with a special gesture of a flower arrangement in
the room as recognition of the importance of a person. This requirement
of flower arrangements for certain guests is conveyed to housekeeping
by the front office on a daily basis.
12. Apart from the above communications the front office needs to
depend on housekeeping for the provision of clean uniforms to its staff.
Relationship with Engineering Department:
The housekeeping control desk have to coordinate with the engineering
department for maintenance request that the room attendants registers
while servicing the guest room or in the floor.
- The housekeeping department depends on maintenance to keep things in order.
- While carrying out their scheduled work, housekeeping employees may
find some deficiencies in the hotel facilities, such as faulty
electrical plugs, dripping faucets, leaking pipes or malfunctioning
air-conditioning units etc.
- A need for urgent repairs is reported to maintenance over telephone
and these requests are usually taken into action immediately.
- There are various heads under which maintenance work is done they are:
- Electrical work: air conditioning and heating; fused bulbs , lights
and lamps that are not functioning ; defective plugs and plug points ;
short circuits; and faulty geysers , refrigerators , and minibar fall
under this category.
- Boiler work: this is necessary to maintain a supply of hot water to guestroom.
- Mechanical work: this entails repair or replacement of any faulty
equipment, such as vacuum cleaners, ice-cube machines, and so on.
- Plumbing work: this deals with faulty faucets (taps), showers, drainage systems, water closets, and so on.
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