We all remember those days in March 2020 when we realized that Covid 19 would be unlike anything we had ever experienced in our lives. Almost overnight, the entire country shut down. As we grappled with the unknown, reports informed us that the virus could be transmitted by touching surfaces that had been touched by infected people. I personally remember driving from Ithaca to Florida to visit my daughter who “caught” They wear gloves when they touch the gas pump and are afraid to even set foot in the gas station toilets.
Almost immediately, hotel managers assured prospective guests that their future rooms would be cleaned in compliance with all safety measures and, most importantly, that no one would enter their room during their stay unless they requested it. The age-old concept of daily room cleaning was abolished.
Fast forward: We later learned that the danger of the virus came from airborne transmission rather than from touching infected surfaces. However, daily housekeeping did not immediately resume.
In the last downturns in the hotel industry – 9/11 and the 2008 recession – “came back” by focusing on capacity utilization and keeping prices low. Four years after these downturns, the industry seemed “Back to normal.” Occupancy was good, prices rose and the number of guests of all types returned to pre-recession levels.
The Covid comeback
The Covid comeback was different in two ways. First, the comeback was driven by rate, not occupancy. There were two reasons for this: (1) consumers who had spent more than a year locked in their homes were desperate to travel and were willing to pay any price. Hence, the term “revenge travel” was born; and (2) hotel employers were simply unable to fully staff their establishments. The staffing shortage had two main causes: people leaving this recession-prone industry and the country’s failure to enact a comprehensive immigration policy.
The second reason the comeback was different was that certain types of travel did not fully return and still have not. Business travel changed during the pandemic with the advent and convenience of remote meetings, conferences and hearings – creating a completely new way of doing business. Thus, this new “Normal” meant that business people were not traveling as much as they once did and that business conferences were less frequent and smaller. The lack of a full resumption, the fear of people in guest rooms and the lack of staff resulted in one sacrifice: daily room cleaning.
For employers, reducing daily cleaning has three main benefits. First, it reduces the pressure to find employees. Labor shortages remain a significant problem in many markets. HR professionals spend countless hours recruiting housekeepers. When their own efforts fail, hotels may turn to labor recruiters. Labor recruiters create a whole new set of problems—the joint employer doctrine, potential penalties for undocumented employees, and a loss of culture and standards. Second, some guests simply don’t want people in their rooms. If you can accommodate guest requests by not providing a service, it’s an incredibly easy way to score points in guest satisfaction.
Alternatively, you can explain to a guest that the only way to ensure that their room remains unattended is to “Please do not disturb” Sign on the door is not ideal. Guests forget it. They are inconvenienced by having to complete a task, however simple, to fulfill their requests, rather than simply informing the hotel when checking in. Third, it saves the hotel significant costs. In fact, the cost savings can be so significant that some hotels offer their guests incentives in the form of loyalty points, food and beverage vouchers, or other amenities to forgo daily housekeeping.
In fact, in some markets, hourly wages for housekeeping staff exceed $30 per hour, and in Los Angeles and Seattle, local laws regulate the number of square feet a housekeeping staff member can clean per day. When guests can opt out of daily housekeeping, they save money on hourly wages, as well as supervision, laundry and other incidental costs.
Don’t forget the costs
However, this does not mean that there are no costs. First of all, there is the impact on the property. While many business travelers create little to no mess (I make my own bed when traveling alone to stretch and out of habit), other types of travel are not as gentle on the room. I think of my days as a “swim, dad.” My daughter and I spent three days in an exclusive service hotel, where we spent hours between meetings, eating, working, sleeping or just relaxing. At the end of the weekend, wet towels, leftover food and other remnants of our stay remained. In addition to the wear and tear on the room itself, cleaning after three days could take two or three times longer than in a “typical” Check-out would take longer. Hotels would have to take this into account in their planning and room credits.
The next and probably most obvious cost is the experience. Anyone old enough to remember air travel in the 1970s and before looks back fondly on what was once a highlight of a trip. The airline mantra was to make every traveler feel special and pamper them with full meals and first-class service. Today, people try to avoid air travel at all costs. Whether it’s Zoom, driving, taking the train or, for the very wealthy, private flights, for many people almost anything beats the experience of a commercial flight.
Are hotels becoming like airlines? Already, technology – whether simple wheeled luggage or more sophisticated technology in the form of concierge apps or digital check-ins – has greatly reduced the human interaction that is a central part and highlight of the guest experience. In addition, food delivery apps have made in-room dining and even eating in the hotel restaurant less common, turning the hotel into just a place to sleep rather than an integral part of the trip.
Impact on employment in the hotel industry
In addition to the loss of experience, it also impacts employment in the hospitality industry. The technological advances listed above have all led to a reduction in employee numbers. Rolling luggage means fewer front desk employees; electronic check-ins mean fewer front desk employees. The same goes for concierge services and other hotel services. Of course, the reduced employee numbers are a positive for profit-driven owners and operators. On the other hand, reducing or eliminating daily housekeeping is an existential threat to unions, whose job it is to grow and increase their influence.
Currently, housekeeping is the area where technology has had the least impact (although there are robot vacuum cleaners and perhaps other tasks on the way). The importance of housekeepers to the union has grown because other departments have shrunk but housekeeping has not. Therefore, the reduction of daily housekeeping is a huge threat to the most important department of unionized employees. If the union cannot protect the jobs of its housekeepers, its influence over the industry will greatly diminish. This fact has led to a two-tiered response to today’s daily housekeeping problem.
Nonunion hotel operators have discretion over daily housekeeping. For example, some hotels ask guests when making reservations, others when checking in. At least one New Orleans hotel, a franchise of a major brand, offers daily housekeeping only if guests request it 24 hours in advance. So, unless there is a local law requiring it, daily housekeeping is now a decision that nonunion hotels make.
The situation is quite different for unionized hotels. As mentioned above, the lack of daily housekeeping is a threat to the viability of unions in the hotel sector. On a micro level, it is a source of anxiety and financial risk for employees. Instead of occupancy determining the need for housekeeping, guest choice now also reduces the need for housekeeping on a daily basis. Therefore, historical occupancy rates for certain times of the year would no longer guarantee employees work. Union representatives will claim that this unknown contributes to the labor shortage. Consequently, daily housekeeping has been a major topic of ongoing and soon-to-begin negotiations for 2024.
Employers argue that guests have freedom of choice. Ultimately, hotels are concerned with customer satisfaction, and if guests don’t want housekeeping, they shouldn’t need it. To take this argument further, employers claim that the “Do Not Disturb” sign is not a solution to guest satisfaction.
However, the unions will stand up for what the employers see as “Gag orders.” A message ban means that the front desk or reservations staff are prohibited from even mentioning the option to opt out of housekeeping. The other option is to inform the guest that a “Do Not Disturb” sign avoids housekeeping service. But then the question becomes whether rooms with a “Do Not Disturb” sign count as housekeeping. “Credit” for the day.
The 2024 union negotiations will set standards for daily housekeeping at numerous hotels across the country. In the meantime, absent legislation, non-union hotels will set their own standards. Guests at non-union hotels who want housekeeping or not will need to check with the property about their policies. Hotels will need to ensure that local laws do not require compliance. Unions will continue to view the issue as vital.
Reprinted from Hotel Business Review with permission from http://www.hotelexecutive.com/.
