World Class HouseKeeping Solutions

By Kazzam

"Back of house is the part of the hotel that customers never see. All being well they never even have to think about it either. Luggage invisibly appears, rooms are kept spotless, restaurants serve dishes as if out of thin air, and all the staff you do happen to come into contact with are charming, smiling and efficient to the core. But behind the scenes frantic activity and heroic organization within cramped quarters are the norm, and nowhere is this more true than for the housekeeping department. The life blood of the hotel, for if it sells nothing else the main reason to stay in one, and that is to have a room to sleep in. Housekeeping is responsible for those all-important first impressions (cleanliness and order, upkeep and maintenance). A successful housekeeping team can do as much if not more to influence the profit margins of the hotel than any other department – yet its role and staff members are often looked down upon as ‘just a bunch of cleaners'. Lets

turn back the cover on the job that is less glorified, so let me, Manish Jain, unravel the myths behind the role, train future housekeepers and instill a sense of pride in a job without which no hotel could run."

Presenting Kazzam, a smart software designed for the modern day Accommodations operations manager. Kazzam is designed keeping in mind the various activities a housekeeper is responsible for and generates analysis empowering the Manager with accurate data and suggests parameters for improvement to bring the hotel to a Zero defect level. It also assists in cost analysis to ensure expenses are maintained within budgets. Kazzam is a unique products that prompts about training to be done, discrepancies in inventories, defaulting rooms for weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly/ quarterly activities, Strengths and weakness of the individual or department as a whole. It also helps in reward and recognition planning of the top performers and generates KRAs for individuals assisting in appraisal system. Mentioned below are its key features –

Soft service analysis : For improving on soft service skills of the department, Kazzam provides a unique system of analyzing weakness by auditing team members on their skill sets. A set of soft skills are defined by the management on which every team members is audited on a daily basis. The records for the same are entered into the system and thus begins a journey of self improvement based on actual facts.

As shown in the screen shot above the supervisor or manager audits the team member on skills such as dusting, bed

making, bathroom cleaning, supply placement etc on a scale of 1 to 5 (one being the lowest score) based on the actual

condition of the room. It is suggested to conduct one audit per team member per day to derive at best results. The system

prompts on the average score of the individual for the audit and accumulates data for analyzing strengths/ weaknesses.

The manager/ director of rooms can view the individual audits done for a team member for the month with the average

scores for each soft service parameter. The system also highlights the weakness of the individual which need to be addressed

for optimizing his/her performance.

By auditing individual team members on their soft service skill set Kazzam also derives at the departmental performance for

the month highlighting the strengths and weakness which can be viewed for any period of the year as shown in the screen

shot above.

The system also highlights audits missed for a particular day for an individual to ensure an even and realistic data is collected

for the individual spread over the month, as shown in the screen shot below.

Training needs:

As shown above, Kazzam then analyses the audit data and highlights the five weakest skill sets of the department for the

last month, under the training section. It then assists the manager with the mandatory training to be planned as per last

months data suggesting the team members who have performed poorly under those parameters. It also assists the manager

to schedule other training and calculates man hours. Kazzam records all training conducted and generates reports for any/all

training done for any particular month/ period of the year as shown in the screen shot below -

Hardware defects:

Kazzam also assists the manager in the Herculean task of maintaining defect list for all hardware related concerns of the

rooms , which can be predefined in the hardware defect list.

This audit is conducted by the supervisor/ manager listing down the parameters under three sections – to be replaced, in

working condition ad excellent condition. The system also prompts about the rooms missed out under the missed audit

reports to ensure all rooms are covered for the month.

The manager can then view all such defects room wise /floor wise / defect wise/ category of defect wise. It also assists in

PPM planning by listing out updated records for the individual room/ floor etc.

Cost analysis :

For any manager to run his/her department successfully he/ she needs to be completely aware of the financial position of the

department in all respects. Kazzam assists in maintaining and generating records for Guest and cleaning supplies which can

be also viewed as cost per occupied room in individual supply or comprehensive manner. As per the screen shot below the

desk attendant enters all supplies issued for he department for the day/month -

This record can then be analyzed to find out the cost per occupied room for cleaning/ guest supplies. This ensures that the

manager is aware of the departments performance and any discrepancies can be addressed immediately.

Also a master list can be generated for the month/ specified period to keep track of the overall costing as shown below. The

same is generated in an excel sheet for ease of maintaining and circulating records.

To ensure that the department does not exceed the budgeted supply cost, a worksheet is provided for the manager wherein

he/she can calculate the supply cost for the coming month by entering approximate requirement and forecasted romnights.

Inventory Management :

The biggest challenge for any hotel is to maintain inventories. Kazzam assists the manager by providing an inventory

management feature wherein all articles can be accounted for. It provides an option to list N number of categorize with items

under it.

The physical inventory records can be entered into the system to generate discrepancies/Maintain records for a

month/selected time frame.

Activity Scheduling :

Kazzam is designed to assist the housekeeper in keeping track of the cleaning activities planned for the rooms on a Weekly/

fortnightly/ monthly/ quarterly bases. The manager configures the activities under the sections listed which in turn need to

be addressed by the supervisor and updated in the system for the particular room.

The manager can then identify the defaulting rooms for the particular activity and take corrective measures to ensure

compliance.

The system is designed in an absolutely user friendly manner and data can be configured with utmost ease under the admin

page. Screen shot of the admin page is shown below-

Kazzam also assists Corporate housekeepers by letting them access information of two or more hotels to analyse

performances and suggest corrective measures to be taken under the Super Admin access.

There are a lot of other features that would ease the workload of the HK Manager and empower him/her. In a nut shell

Kazzam intelligently highlights the following -

a) The quality of cleanliness both for individuals and for the department as a whole.

b) The major/minor maintenances to be carried out in the rooms.

c) The SWOT analysis of room cleanliness.

d) The training needs of individuals and the department.

e) The cost analysis of Guest supplies and cleaning supplies.

f) Training calendar and man hours.

g) Inventory Management.

h) Snag lists and PPM planning.

i) Discrepancies in cleaning and other work schedules. For any further enquires please feel free to contact the undersigned –

Manish Jain Director Kazzam 9164533999 manish@kazzam.in www.kazzam.in