HOUSEKEEPING CART A BLESSING OR A CURSE
Purnima Verma
01 Feb 2016
We all have stayed at hotels at some point of our life. The most interesting part is that we all have presumptions about hotel in some or the other way. The hotels are no longer the same as they were decades ago but there are still some habits that have passed from the old generation of employees to younger generation of employees in the hotel industry. Interesting part is that these mistakes or habits are going to be transferred to the next generation of young workers in the housekeeping department in various hotels. Maids cart were introduced in the housekeeping department so that these could be used to store the articles in the housekeeping items through which a long list of items which are required in the room cleaning do not consume most of the housekeeping room attendants crucial time in the day.
Most of the staff as room attendants are supposed to use the maids cart or the chamber maids trolley on the guest floors so that they can carry the cleaning articles to the room for carrying out the cleaning but most room attendants get into the habit of stocking the carts in a haphazard way which leads to the dumping of soiled article and mixing of cleaning items on the trolley. This kind of trolley firstly, is not presentable at all and secondly can lead to trespassing from the guest and visitors and can lead to hiding of any harmful items which may go unnoticed by the room attendant. The closets present in the housekeeping cart are meant to store the guest amenities for replenishing in the room. These items are meant to be of premium brands and expensive.
These closets are often left open unintentionally for the visitors to explore or at times can also lead to a pilferage by someone present on the floor which the room attendant is unlikely to notice because he /she is busy inside the room for cleaning.
These trolleys are often overloaded which make the task of pushing of this trolley a tiresome job for the attendant. This could also turn out to be a health hazard if the attendant continues to put lot of pressure on the body parts on regular basis while pushing or pulling this overloaded trolley.
On the other hand these trolleys if stocked properly can be very useful as the attendant does not have to visit the housekeeping pantry to bring and dump articles involved in the cleaning. If an attendant is supposed to clean 14-16 rooms in a shift then without the availability of this trolley, the attendant will spend most of the time in the day in taking rounds of the housekeeping pantry and the guestroom. The trolleys also provide space to accommodate the cleaning machines like vacuum cleaner which otherwise will have to be carried or lifted by the room attendant. There is also a provision in these trolleys to store the garbage which is taken out of the room while clearing the dustbins from the room.
Some of the hotels have slowly started to look for replacements of this trolley with a smaller version so trolleys can be easily maintained and can be taken inside the guest room for cleaning. But these new trolleys lack space and design to carry all the articles at the same time. However they can be an asset to the hotel incase the hotel wants to completely do away with the trolleys.
Well this can be concluded that this is a debatable topic as to whether the maids cart trolleys actually are helping the attendants or are more of hazard to the hotels in the longer run. Each individual might have an opinion about this. The hotels will have to look at the productivity and presentation both aspects together before taking a final call on these trolleys.
