Our Housekeeping services are environment-friendly

Hospitality Lexis had a conversation with the Executive Housekeeper Mohammed Ismail  about the housekeeping services in Four Points by Sheraton Mahabalipuram Resort & Convention Center

Hospitality Lexis/ Print edition December 2019 

At Four Points by Sheraton Mahabalipuram, we strongly believe in training our associates adequately. Our housekeeping staff are assigned with specialized cleaning duties and we ensure that they follow the given instructions properly. Before starting the job, it is mandatory for our associates, to keep their mobile phones on silent. Our associates would enter the room as per our hotel standard procedure, which is, a mandatory two-knock, two-announcement rule. Upon entering the room, the team will call out once more, in case, the guests haven’t heard them from outside the room. Our associates are asked not to ring the doorbell and knock the door instead, as there could be a baby or someone resting inside the guest room and might cause some concern. The housekeeping staff would maintain silence in and around the guest rooms and should speak in a low tone. The rooms are set up in such a way that we have 4 rooms together in a single building. We skip

cleaning the entire building even if one room is occupied, as vacuuming or scrubbing the floor will create noise and disturb the other guests. Our associates ensure that wheels of all trolleys and hotel luggage carriers are well-maintained and well-oiled in order to avoid and reduce the noise.

Being part of Marriott International, we take pride in maintaining a healthy environmental balance and we do it through the following guidelines. Our associates ensure segregation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste by maintaining separate dustbins. The wastes are further segregated and reused as manure for the planted trees. Marriott International has an established environmental policy and has made a commitment to ‘Go Green’. Four Points by Sheraton being part of Marriott Hotels follows this initiative by keeping a ‘Go Green card’ with all relevant information that is placed in our guests’ rooms that help them in playing their part in conserving water and electricity. Only when the guests indicate to us we change their sheets or replace their towels. As a general hotel policy, we change the linen or towels on a daily basis.

We have an initiative called “Soap for Hope”, where we collect the hotel’s discarded soaps and recycle them to provide free access to those who need it. Through this activity, we are also able to create livelihood opportunities by enabling families to make a small living by recycling and making soap. We are a resort and have a sizable gardening area surrounding our property, this helps us in maintaining better air quality. For improving indoor air quality, our housekeeping staff ensures that the door and windows are always kept open while cleaning the rooms. We at Marriott follow a centralised rule of contracting vendors, be it, for the brand of water or purchasing environment-friendly products. We ensure that the water is provided in glass bottles instead of plastic bottles to all the guests staying at the hotel. All plastic packings for Bathroom and bedroom supplies such as dental kit, shaving kit, brush, shower cap etc. have been replaced with paper packing. We have gone plastic-free and provide our guests with paper laundry bags, slipper rap and a biodegradable shower cap. We use only organic fertilizer and no chemical fertilizers for landscaping

We ensure that each of our associates is provided with an equal and fair amount of work through a very systematic roster that’s planned. We ensure to meet our associates on a weekly and monthly basis to understand their working schedule and if there is any additional assistance required from the HR team. We organize community lunches, high-tea and dinner programs for our associates and these are for every department that also includes housekeeping. We conduct weekly employee engagement and recognition activities to keep our associates engaged and motivated.

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