
Bahrain is the land of potential. Its sanitization and disinfection service market observed a sharp increase during the period of COVID-19 pandemic owing to precautionary measures and preventive steps taken by the government such as the launch of the Disinfection Programme in April 2020 aimed at disinfecting the public areas. Under this initiative, government-provided disinfection training through 44 training courses, wherein 322 individuals from cleaning and private companies were trained.
Despite these measures, housekeeping challenges still remain. Since the pandemic, the hospitality industry of Bahrain has seen a few rough years. It has marked an era of lockdowns, travel restrictions, and heightened awareness of the many ways that disease can be spread in shared environments. Fortunately, we are looking at a brighter present and future now.
We spoke to two seasoned housekeepers from Bahrain - Mr. Pierre Renno, Director Of Housekeeping,Four Seasons Hotel, Bahrain Bay and
Mr. Anas Uddin, Executive Housekeeper, ARMAN HOTEL JUFFAIR MALL to further explore the challenges and opportunities in housekeeping in Bahrain.
The housekeeping scenario in Bahrain: What has changed
The housekeeping sector has evolved a lot during the last few years in Bahrain, especially during the pandemic. All the cleaning policies and procedures were enhanced gradually. All precautions needed to prevent the spread of the pandemic were put into place. The focus was not only on cleaning, but also on sanitizing all the surfaces with specific chemicals after cleaning to prevent any cross contamination.
“We had a huge swap from doing only the necessary cleaning to now cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing for the safety and well being of our guests, staff and visitors,” says Pierre. “We focussed on all the hygienic aspects during the pandemic and we continue to do what we were doing. It has become a trend, a habit and a good one at that,” he adds. Pierre expects that the cleaning measures will continue to improve and evolve with time. This evolution of cleaning processes will also help housekeepers to combat any new strains of virus that may erupt in the coming times.
Anas believes that together technology and housekeeping in Bahrain have grown because of the pandemic. Housekeepers were under constant pressure to clean and sanitize every surface and they couldn't take it lightly because people’s lives were at stake. So they resorted to new age technologies that simplified cleaning and disinfection while also proving to be efficient. Every area, every nook and corner of the hotel had and has to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, all high touch points have to be sanitized more frequently and all this has been possible because of modern technologies.
Anas goes on to explain how training the staff has played a pivotal role in housekeeping. “We continue to train our staff because chemicals, technologies and equipment are evolving very fast and our cleaning staff needs to know what is new, why it is to be used and most importantly, how it is to be used,” he says. The guidelines from the concerned Ministries keep changing with the change in times and the housekeeping staff also needs to be well versed in terms of those guidelines in order to be able to adhere to them. “I like to refer to my housekeeping staff as warriors because they have been no less than the cleaning warriors in hospitals,” he adds.
The housekeeping fraternity in Bahrain has ensured it upgrades sanitizing machines and chemicals its cleaners use on a routine basis and opt for technologies that minimize effort, while maintaining quality and effective cleaning.
Key challenges in hotel housekeeping in Bahrain
Employee retention or turnover in the hotel industry is a major challenge in Bahrain. It’s an even bigger challenge in the housekeeping department as it is characterized by long work hours, low salaries, physically demanding tasks and a very high pressure environment. All these factors lead to employees not wanting to stick to the housekeeping department.
Another challenge in hotel housekeeping is continuously training, then retaining and motivating the staff and the increased mechanization in the housekeeping department have led to an increased need of training the ground staff. As new technologies and equipment take root in the market, it is important that your staff knows how to use them. You can invest in the most expensive or efficient equipment but if your staff do not understand how to use it, it will not perform for your business.
A lot of employees were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic due to lockdown and losses in hotel business. This also caused challenges in manning.
Another challenge in Bahrain is providing the guest rooms with operating supplies since there are problems shipping those items and delays in delivery. This happens because most of the operating supplies in hotels come from outside the country, mostly from far-East or Europe where they have lots of restrictions on export. This is the reason why the housekeeping fraternity in Bahrain often has to face the challenge of shortage of items. These challenges spiked up after the pandemic.
Dealing with the dearth of skilled workers
We have been focussing on outsourcing employees. We feel it is a better business strategy to meet the demands of the hotel standards. It also helped us in reducing the manpower gap and availability of suitable personnel. I feel outsourcing is the way forward because it provides the best solution for many specialized tasks and is more cost effective as well.
The outsourced team is trained as well to ensure that they maintain the levels of service expected by the hotel,”says Pierre.
After the pandemic, the business of the hotels has increased suddenly and cleaning teams have had to work extra shifts. Pierre has ensured that the number of paid extra hours are also increased for his housekeeping team to keep them motivated and to retain their talent. Pierre believes that increased motivation and incentives are pivotal to employee retention, especially in housekeeping, where the common trend is to exit a company soon after training.
However, one of the major challenges that arise as a result of outsourcing is that the staff members keep changing. So if you took the time and effort to orient team A, the next day you’ll have to put in the same time and effort orienting team B, and so on. If these outsourced teams don’t provide optimum services, the onus will fall upon the hotel. Anas follows a different approach in his hotel. He makes use of college placements from the Indian sub-continent to meet the increasing demand of manpower in his housekeeping department. The positive side of getting newcomers is that you can train them however you want and they will adapt accordingly. New people will breathe in fresh ideas into the housekeeping sector, which is otherwise very old school. “I am personally learning a lot from newcomers. They are enthusiastic, full of ideas and self motivated,” says Anas.
Cleaning technologies currently used in Bahrain
Pierre has resorted to using ozone machinery and air purifiers as a learning from the pandemic.
These technologies reduce the risk of transferring viruses. These come in handy especially after check-out.
There are other technologies being implemented to eliminate smoke or the fragrance of strong perfumes, paint, etc to ensure that the next guest feels the room is fresh and clean.
There is an electronic system inside rooms that allows guests to place their requests for the housekeeping teams. When guest requests go directly to the housekeeping teams, it reduces the turn-around time of the housekeeping team to cater to those requests. This system saves time and increases guest satisfaction.
UV lights are another effective way to ensure the room is cleaned and disinfected thoroughly after guests check-out.
Housekeeping in Bahrain has come a long way and it continues to grow stronger each passing day. It has its own share of challenges but those challenges are paving way for suppliers and distributors to create more opportunities in the market that brims with potential.