A "novel" idea to improve labor productivity and staff safety while dealing with the novel coronavirus!

Earlier this week the President extended the Stay-at-Home/social distancing guidelines through April 30, 2020. Any domestic hotels still operating are likely doing so with low occupancy, vastly reduced staffing and with some, if not all, worker’s pay reduced by 20%. While the CDC, hotel management companies and the brands have been updating guidelines for hotels to follow regarding cleaning procedures to protect the health and safety of guests and employees - hotel GM’s and Housekeeping personnel may still be left in a quandary about how to implement these new guidelines and to do so efficiently and safely, with limited staff and protective gear. There could be a cost effective solution for hotels with low occupancy…

 If you have read my recent recommendations on how hotel operators can increase their chances of survival during this crisis (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/hoteliers-increase-your-chances-survival-paul-francisco) you will have learned that I have spent the last 40 years perfecting operational processes and systems specifically designed to increase hotel performance, productivity and efficiency, especially in Housekeeping. I am keeping up with all of the current trends and guidance related to the COVID-19 pandemic and consulting clients on best practices.

 It is evident that governmental agencies (like the CDC and EPA), major hotel chains (the brands), hotel management companies and independent owners place slightly different filters on their guidance to hotel operators. Governmental agencies offer a variety of broad recommendations, which are geared to maximizing public safety, and rightly so. It is left to the operator to boil the advice down to executable procedures including precisely what products to use on what surfaces, how to apply it, who should apply it and what PPE (personal protective equipment) to use. In addition, the recommendations offer little advice on how to source all of the required products and PPE at a time when such resources are scarce.

 Meanwhile, brands also need to cover their bases for a variety of reasons: reputation management in the court of public opinion (why didn’t they act sooner or with broader guidelines), offer assistance to franchisees whom otherwise might not have the bandwidth to address crisis planning on their own and ensure that at least the basic safety requirements are being communicated to reduce liability. I have recently read the guidance from Marriott and Hilton and both contain great common sense recommendations, although I felt that Marriott’s is much more comprehensive. It’s a fact that brands need franchisees to be as successful as possible or they run the risk of a reduction in their coveted franchise fees. While brands truly have the best interests of their franchisees at heart, in some cases by the time crucial communications like these are distributed, their legal teams have watered down the guidance to mere “suggestions” with heavy doses of “follow federal and local guidance” and “verify proper cleaning products with your chemical vendor”. Can’t blame them too much for as we all know, this industry is susceptible to all kinds of litigation. With brands then needing to err on the side of being overly-cautious with its guidance, it leaves operators struggling to sift through all of the recommendations to find the absolute “must-have’s”.

 Management companies on the other hand try to balance the need for public safety of guests and associates with that of practical and P&L-friendly approaches. Anyone reading guidance from the government or the brands might assume they infer that hotels still have “normal” or increased staffing levels now to effectively implement the additional care and steps required to follow all of these new guidelines. The reality is that IF a hotel is still open for business one can rest assured that staffing levels have been reduced by as much as 80%-90% from prior “normal” levels. So what is an operator to do?

 Without a doubt, the hotel has a responsibility to sanitize high-touch areas in all public spaces including counter tops at the front desks, pens, surfaces in business centers, airline ticket kiosks, room keys, elevator buttons, door knobs, vending machines, ice machines, guest laundry, parking gate buttons, and the like several times a day. Per Marriott’s latest guidelines, that would be as much as every two hours, but up to every 20 minutes on some surfaces. To help reduce traffic in the registration areas, travelers should be encouraged as much as possible to utilize their mobile devices as electronic keys and mobile “straight-to-room-check-in” where the technology exists, such as brands like Hilton and Marriott. It would make sense to inform guests you are taking these extra precautions as they check in, even if only with professional looking notices on an easel by the front desk or front doors.

I would assume most hotels already have or will be discontinuing all stay-over services and only plan to clean checkouts. Some very limited stay-over service may be required if guests specifically request fresh towels, amenities or trash removal. And even then, protocols would need to be in place for the scheduled removal of used linens and trash to protect workers from potential contamination. It would make sense to have staff offer requested additional linen, terry or amenities to be delivered in a trash bag tied to the entry door handle – like a non-face-to-face “knock and drop” delivery. Also, think about supplying a large trash bag so the stay-over guest can empty smaller cans in the room themselves. The hotel operator will need to get creative with very limited management and hourly staffing to fulfill all of the necessary public space cleaning. It is important to clearly communicate these modified stay-over processes up front with the guests either through notifications through the reservation system (preferred way), as they are checking in or via in-room collateral.

 But how can you maximize housekeeping productivity for check-outs and increase staff safety with all of the additional sanitation requirements?

 New COVID-19 guidelines include sanitizing all high-touch locations in the entire guestroom. This would include the obvious things like door knobs inside and out, TV remote, in-room phones, desks, coffee machines, safes, etc. But less obvious things would include the microwave and refrigerator door handles and buttons, lamp and light switches, chair backs and arms, alarm clocks, drawer pulls, irons, ironing boards, luggage racks, drapery wands, room service menus, closet hangers, etc. That involves a lot of sanitizing, resources and extra staff diligence to be safe and effective.

 News alert… prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 public and guestroom bathrooms were about the only place hotels used actual sanitizing disinfectant powerful enough to kill something like the coronavirus. For all other cleaning purposes within a guestroom, typically only commercial grade general purpose and glass cleaners have been utilized.

 Ecolab has two sanitizing all-purpose cleaning products recommended for COVID-19 that would be safe to use on all guestroom surfaces – Oasis Pro 14 Antibacterial All-purpose Cleaner and Peroxide Multi-surface Cleaner and Disinfectant. Neither contains bleach that could damage carpeting, upholstery, bedding or other fabrics. A best practice in using sanitizers around electronics and electrical equipment is to spray the product on a clean rag. This would work better to sanitize things like time clocks, keyboards, TV screens, remotes, phones, light switches, elevator buttons, lamp switches, etc. Spraying product directly onto the surfaces would risk possible shock or damage to the equipment.

 But consider the following novel idea that I suspect will be gaining more traction if this industry slowdown persists. The addition of labor-intensive sanitizing procedures is not a sustainable business model for hotels running already very low occupancies. Our desk agents, cleaning and laundry staff are on the front lines of the pandemic in much the same way that I see with grocery store cashiers and pharmacy workers. Their livelihood requires them to work in a riskier environment without the option of working from home.

 I have read that the virus itself is more likely to be transferred via airborne transmission versus surface transmission. Nevertheless, it has been reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973, March 17, 2020) that of the surfaces tested, the virus is viable the longest on surfaces like stainless steel and polypropylene plastic (ice buckets, trash cans, etc) for up to three days. It is viable for less time on other surfaces. They report that the half-life of the virus on plastic and stainless steel is 5.6 hours and 6.8 hours, respectively. This means that the decay of the viable virus particles reduces the sample by one half in that time frame. The less “active particles” you are exposed to, the less risk of becoming infected. Therefore, if your staff is entering a newly vacated room, there is a risk of contamination, if not properly protected, from handling linens and cleaning any surfaces that may house the virus. So how can we limit this risk short of outfitting the entire staff, as few as there may be, in hazmat suits from head to toe and requiring them to enter and exit work through a decontamination tent?

 It’s been my experience that most hotels maintain a linen par of 2.5 to 3 turns. According to STR, the average occupancy in the US is now at 22.6%, for the week ending March 28, 2020. If I had a hotel running 25% or less, and was determined to keep it open for business, one possible solution to keep costs down would be to keep track of checkouts by day, even if it had to be done manually. With a linen par of 2.5, and running 25% occupancy, I could theoretically refrain from processing any laundry for at least two weeks before things started getting tight. But I wouldn’t recommend doing that.

 What I would recommend is to let the checkout rooms sit untouched for at least three days or longer, short of a quick visual check of lights, TV, running water, smelly trash or something that might attract bugs. Just a quick in and out, and then let it sit. Based on the NEJM research after the three or more days, the risk of contracting or spreading the virus from surface contamination should be down to near zero percent and would be much safer for your room attendant to enter to do the cleaning, handling of trash and collecting soiled linens. The longer the room has been vacant, the more likely all of the additional sanitizing list in the paragraphs above wouldn’t be needed. So you could go back to your typical pre-COVID-19 checkout cleaning procedures and productivity and switch your old all-purpose cleaner with one of the recommended sanitizers listed above. And you could also use the hours you are saving from not servicing any stay-overs in the typical fashion to do the extra sanitizing needed in the public areas.

 Whether you continue to do some or all of the recommended in-room sanitizing is up to you, but it seems like the staff would definitely be much safer if the rooms sat vacant for several days. Think about staggering your available inventory so that you still maintain enough clean rooms for sale but aren’t cleaning rooms unless they’ve been empty for 72 hours (3 days). At a 20% occupancy level you could clean 20% of your rooms after waiting 4 days on a daily basis, at 10% occupancy you could clean 10% of the rooms after waiting 9 days on a daily basis. This would still protect your guests, but also your staff and your bottom line!

 If you are running higher than 25% occupancy, you could clean enough rooms for the next day’s forecast by using the CDC and brand recommended sanitizing procedures but leave the rest of the rooms sitting for 3 days or longer. At least you would be saving some labor and limiting some of the risk to your team until things start to pick back up.

 Whether hotels attempt to save money and lessen exposure to employees by using the aforementioned 72-hour or longer waiting period plan or choose to attack the virus head on using resources and chemicals, your plan and procedures must be clearly communicated by hotel management and well executed. Ultimately, it is the owner’s decision on which recommendations to follow, or not. And it is a decision based on tolerance to risk; ethical risk, health risk and financial risk.

I would like to hear your comments on this article or additional efforts you have taken to balance health safety and profit at your hotel(s). So feel free to post comments here on LinkedIn. In addition, feel free to contact me if you have questions or other topics you like me to address in this forum.