Cranky Customer

I did a bit of traveling for business last year, and was disappointed to see that the hotel my company uses regularly was among the worst offenders I have seen in my normally travel-deprived life. The soap, shampoo, conditioner, towels and bedding were changed every single day I spent in the hotel (1-2 weeks at a time). The only ecological consideration that housekeeping made was that they sometimes didn't bother replacing things -- they just took the old towels and soap away... Ecological, perhaps, but not very guest-friendly.

On the flip-side, I have to give a kudos to the Hilton Suites in Boca Raton, FL. I spent 4 weeks there on business, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the policy was actually followed perfectly -- including not replacing soap/shampoo unnecessarily. The only exception was a total refresh of everything once a week or so, which I figured was perfectly acceptable.

When I stay at hotels for a long time, I generally take my own shampoo & conditioner with me, and keep the mini-bottles and extra soaps home with me (which always seem to be refreshed each day). This way they don't just get thrown unnecessarily into a landfill. I then send these to the soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places; they say that these mini soaps, mouthwashes, shampoos and basically anything that hotels put out regularly are one of the most sought after supplies--when a soldier is on combat duty for several days or weeks at a time, these minis are the perfect size to have with them.

As CFO of a motel corporation, it is hard to hire people at a service level (minimum wage) that will follow instructions. They will accept the "green policy" for about two days, then it's back to "business as usual". We have head housekeepers whose sole job is to check behind these people to see that policy is followed and they are worse! Most customers will use the "do not disturb" sign, but with the influx of non-english speaking employees, this does not always help. I myself have been suprised more than once stepping from the shower and coming face to face with someone straightening my bed. If you have a cure for this, send me an email...

To Posted by: Bill | June 22, 2006 10:58 AM the "CFO of a motel corporation" asking if anyone has a solution to his problem of non-English speaking maids. The no-brainer solution is to require a proficiency in English of your employees! If they cannot speak English, don't hire them!!

In regards to: Posted by Bill, "CFO of a motel corporation" asking if anyone has a cure for this problem. It would seem there are two problems you noted. One that the housekeepers will not accept and follow the "green policy" for any extended period of time, and two that a majority of them also do not speak English. Hmm well I'm not a CFO, a VIP, CEO, or anything else with a fancy 3-letter title, but it would seem fairly logical that an easy solution would be to have the "Do Not Disturb" signs made with both English and Spanish text on them. And of course someone somewhere is going to say well what if they don't speak English or Spanish, well of course if your housekeeping crew comprises of employees that speak another language, either teach them how to read "Do Not Disturb" in either English or Spanish or have signs printed with a third language on it.

As for the second issue of getting employees to continue to follow the "green policy", I would think for one that its hard to hire people at a service level (minimum wage), that if you are only paying minimum wage, then someone should think of a way to reward them for following policies whether it be more money, shorter times for pay raises, leaving early one day, extended lunch, etc. It would seem someone should be able to figure out how much you would actually save if certain changes were made and followed. Why not pay employees more if the hotel is able to save money? This is what is commenly known as a "Bonus". Although being a "CFO", you probably do get bonuses, but more than likely they are not given as a reward for saving the company money or making the company money, but a regular steady bonus given as part of the salary. How difficult is it to explain to your employees that if the hotel can reduce its costs of laundry, water usage, etc. that a certain portion of that would be used as bonuses and given to employees that are following the policy or even split among all the employees. Or if you don't want to do that, then it would also seem that if you require employees to follow other policies as part of the job, then if they are not going to follow the "green policy", they can go look for employment somewhere else and be replaced. Again if you are only paying minimum wage, it wouldn't seem that the job wouldn't be something "anyone" would be able to perform.

Obviously there are ways to get things accomplished that is "IF" someone or some company really wants to. It seems that your company has decided it is just too hard or would cost too much money to get this done.

I recently stayed at a Ritz Carlton and the card wasn't even there! Luckily they do have GREAT customer service, and I speak spanish, so I was able to tell the maid to only change the towels that were on the floor and to leave the sheets alone. They did that! I guess because it is so luxury, guests might think it's cheap - but if you have $, you can presume (sometimes correctly) that you have intelligence and realize that the hotel is caring for the environment, not trying to save a few bucks when EVERYTHING else there is so expensive.

In response to the comment by Justin, I think that the only way of effectively adhering to a green program and compensating a hotel maid for it is for the guest to make that decision... they can leave a tip for the maid or they can fill out a comment card to leave with the manager. If a hotel has a policy where the maids are paid more for conserving water, I am pretty sure that you will end up with high instances of maids that will hang up towels that were left on the floor and/or excessively dirty in order to boost their paycheck. If keeping the guest happy by following the policy and the guest's wishes is the only way to get that paycheck boost, they will follow the policy.

Regarding the comments about maids that do not speak English and the various cards the hotels have (do not disturb, green policies, etc.) these people work for the hotel: the cards are the same in every single room. It shouldn't take months of study or foreign language cards in each room for the maid to know what the cards mean. If I got a job in Japan working for a hotel, I'm sure that I could identify a do not disturb or green policy card written in Kanji on my first day, after having my manager explain them to me once. These cards often also have pictures on them, depending on the hotel. I don't think you need to learn a foreign language to read pictures.

I have some friends who owned a large B&B in Torquay for a while. They had those signs - and did it. I think B&Bs are far better than hotels about those kind of things, though, as it's a much smaller group of people running them. Nicer places to stay, as well.