Role of outsourcing in housekeeping department

Role of Outsourcing in Housekeeping Department Housekeeping in hotel industry has sought tremendous growth and development when it comes to outsourcing the different areas of housekeeping department in the last few years. Outsourcing in hospitality industry is considered as an effective way to conduct hotel business because of this department’s nature of being labour intensive (Lamminmaki 2007). This concept of outsourcing the housekeeping department is getting popular with the passage of time as the hotel industry is getting mature and the management’s attitude towards focusing on the core activities of the hotel and outsourcing the auxiliary services to the specialized outsourcing firms. These days with the ever growing hotel industry, the housekeeping activities require significant amount of initial expenditure along with specialized skills to develop and maintain infrastructure and gadgets so that better results can be achieved. Outsourcing in housekeeping department is turned out to be a cost-effective strategy in line with better sense of business along with meeting the both the standards of demand and quality (Lamminmaki 2003). Both man and machine in terms of skills and advancements respectively are the blessings of outsourcing in housekeeping department in hotel industry.
Outsourcing Areas
Housekeeping activities that are increasing being outsourced these days involve gym, gardening, swimming pool, linen, laundry, carpet cleaning, curtain cleaning, window cleaning, marble polishing etc (Kim and Mi Kim). These activities are also discussed in the study text books. What actually is the surprising trend that is being followed in large chain of hotels is the outsourcing of more areas which includes floor cleaning, façade cleaning, terrace cleaning and its maintenance, horticulture, pest control and entire compound including all offices.
Reasons for Outsourcing
There are few reasons of outsourcing of housekeeping department that have been identified in an interview with Mr. Zubair Baweja, managing director, Hotel Regent Plaza Karachi, where he explained that the foremost reason in outsourcing area is to put more attention towards the main activities of the hotel business. Those areas in which management is not directly involved with the guests are outsourced to specialized firms which bring in more efficiency and effectiveness in housekeeping activities. The other reasons which caused the management of hotel to go for outsourcing is to eliminate the employee power in the hotel. The effect of unionization and other labour bodies are discouraged by the tool of outsourcing some areas of business. Moreover, the management avoids some high fixed costs which contain selection, recruitment, training and development and turnover costs which could have been incurred, had some departments not been outsourced.
Conclusion and Recommendation
The areas in which improvement can be brought are laundry, gym, swimming pool, technical engineering related activities and some of the cleaning areas. Centralized laundry area should be developed where all the hotels should carry out the laundry, so that uniformity and conformance in the overall laundry services can be maintained. Gym and swimming pools should be outsourced to those fitness centres who are the leaders of this area of business. The technical services which normally include services of electricians and plumbers should be taken from the specialized engineering firms whereas cleaning services outsourcing should be tendered and the best offer should be sought in order to improve the operations of housekeeping department.
References
Express Hospitality, 2006. Outsourcing in housekeeping: A peripheral act. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 23 December 2011]
Kim, Hong-bumm and Mi Kim, Young, n. d., The Role of Outsourcing In Enhancing The Global Value Of Hotels: The Case of Korean Hotel Industries, Available at: [Accessed 23 December 2011]
Lamminmaki, Dawne, 2007. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, Outsourcing in Australian Hotels: A Transaction Cost Economics Perspective, [Online] Available at: < http://jht. sagepub. com/content/31/1/73. short> [Accessed 23 December 2011].
Lamminmaki, Dawne, 2003, Outsourcing in Australian Hotels: A Management Accounting Perspective. Ph. D. Griffith University.