This week, September 14 to 20, is International Housekeeping and Environmental Services Week. According to IEHA, a Division of ISSA, International Housekeeping and Environmental Services Week is all about shining a spotlight on the people who keep our spaces safe, clean, and welcoming every single day.
There are a lot of ways to show love to your housekeepers. Replacing toxic cleaning chemicals with green alternatives is certainly one important way. Green Lodging News has reported on many effective green cleaning products/systems over the years. Search our website on “green cleaning” and you will find many helpful articles.
Being mindful of, and attentive to ergonomics challenges is another way to show support. While you may not have the funds to install bed lift systems throughout your property, you can certainly provide simple solutions for elevating mattresses during linen changing. Housekeepers have a 40 percent higher injury rate than all service sector workers. Think more doctor visits, misery and pain medication. Of course, most housekeepers are women, and most of them are immigrants or women of color.
Workload should be respected. The more a hotel employer pushes its workers to clean rooms at a rapid rate, the higher the risk of injury for those who do so. Per UNITE HERE, today’s employers expect the typical hotel housekeeper to clean 14 or more hotel rooms every day.
Ways to Honor Your Housekeepers
IEHA offers several suggestions to honor your housekeepers this week:
- Personal gratitude: Extend heartfelt thanks to each cleaning team member individually, acknowledging their diligent efforts.
- Wall of appreciation: Create a display in your workplace where colleagues can leave messages of thanks, fostering a sense of community.
- Unity in celebration: Organize a casual gathering, luncheon, or other event to honor your cleaners, emphasizing their role in your team’s success. Do you have an “employee of the month” recognition program?
Offering housekeepers a living wage, with bonuses and other incentives, will certainly help keep them showing up each day. Gift cards, extra paid time off, flexible scheduling and professional development opportunities like tuition reimbursement are also excellent incentives. Discounts on services like hotel stays or local restaurants and tangible benefits like vehicle maintenance subsidies are also valuable.
In what ways have you been creative with how you honor and respect your housekeepers? I would love to know. I can be reached at greenlodgingnews@gmail.com.
