PolyU SPEED lecturers conducted a study to enhance efficiency of hotel operations

PolyU SPEED acknowledges the importance of research and scholarly activities, particularly those that underpin teaching and learning activities at the tertiary level.  The academic staff members are encouraged to participate in research and scholarly activities, such as consultancy work for the industry.  Recently, lecturers of the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Hospitality Management programme have conducted a study for Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hong Kong (Holiday Inn) with an aim of enhancing the work efficiency of its housekeeping staff.

Holiday Inn plans to explore alternatives within the hotel to address the work efficiency issue. The options are simplifying the room-cleaning procedures and seeking assistance from members of The Intellectually Disabled Education and Advocacy League (IDEAL, a workgroup with intellectual disabilities) at the Housekeeping Department. Conducted by Dr Bruce Tsui, Dr Pimtong Tavitiyaman et al., the objectives of the study are to: 1) explore the critical issues within the Housekeeping Department, 2) evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the housekeeping agents, and 3) examine the feasibility of hiring IDEAL members to facilitate housekeeping agents’ work processes.

Several means were employed to investigate the issues: in-depth interviews with hotel executives, focus groups of housekeeping supervisors and agents, real time work observation of housekeeping and IDEAL agents, along with a questionnaire survey of all 50 full-time staff members at Housekeeping Department.

The study showed that housekeeping agents perceived the critical issues in the Housekeeping Department to be manpower, workload, and work-life balance. In contrast, they identified the least critical issues to be attendance rate, career path, and training. The overall work efficiency of housekeeping agents should be further enhanced according to the target set by the management team. For example, the current time of 
38-50 minutes in making up one check-out room should be reduced to the targeted time of 30 minutes in due course.

Bearing the corporate social responsibility to promote work equality, Holiday Inn employs IDEAL agents to assist the full-time housekeeping agents in some simple tasks such as refilling the amenities. The assistance of IDEAL agents somewhat increases the work efficiency of housekeeping agents with regard to the amount of time spent on room cleaning or reduction of the labour cost. As a result, the full-time housekeeping agents can benefit from reduced workloads and a more positive work environment within the department.

This study enables the lecturers to gain a better understanding on the latest industry practice, and helps them refine their teaching with more real life examples and impart work-integrated knowledge to students.