Clean Talk with Rose
By Rose Galera, CEH
Hawaii Hospitality Magazine, Jan/Feb 2012
Hi Rose,
Please share best cleaning practices on how to assist our senior housekeepers with 20-plus working years to maintain their assigned room cleaning productivity level, within the company’s acceptable cleaning standards.
TM
Aloha TM,
Your concern is shared by housekeeping managers in our Hawaii hospitality industry, given the many dedicated and loyal longtime cleaning attendants still in the workforce with high work attendance ethics.
Fortunately, with the ongoing increase in cleaning trends and technology today, there are solutions with processes, tools and equipment that housekeeping managers can turn to creatively. Traditional ways and methods must be replaced or be enhanced with today’s technologies. The following are creative ideas for consideration.
Microfiber cleaning technology:
1. Stained terry cloths cut, surged and used for cleaning rags are tools of the past and are to be replaced with today’s cleaning tools of the fiade, microfiber cleaning cloths and mops.
Microfiber cloths reduce time in dry dusting, damp wiping and wet cleaning of surfaces as they attract and hold onto soil and do not spread it around. When used properly, the microfiber cloth can have 16 folded sides to speed up the cleaning process. A color coding cleaning process for guest room cleaning will avoid the guesswork of which cloths to use. For example: blue for dry or damp dusting of furniture and fixture surfaces, yellow for glass/ mirror polishing, and red for bathroom cleaning of counter surfaces, walls and fixtures. Microfiber cloths are also excellent for carpet spotting processes.
2. Replace the old string mops or terry rags for mopping of floors with the microfiber flat mop system. I recommend two extendable mop handles with flat head attachments, 12-14 inches in size with four to six microfiber flat mop heads. With the microfiber flat mops, the following bath and guest room cleaning processes can be accomplished without bending, stooping or climbing for low and high area cleaning:
a) bathtub wall or shower wall cleaning
b) bathtub surround, outer tub surfaces, inner tub and shower floors
c) damp mopping of the bathroom floor
d) cleaning and polishing of bathroom mirrors with a flat mop head
e) dusting of walls, ceilings, vents, baseboards and ledges
Renewable cleaning with microfiber cleaning technology and proper training on the various processes will enhance and simplify guest room cleaning, save on body movements and safety in cleaning, that will assist in maintaining productivity and results-oriented cleaning, for senior employees still in the workforce.
Mahalo, Rose