Housekeeping department is primarily responsible for providing a healthy environment by ensuring cleanliness and maintaining high standards of hygiene along with ensuring that the aesthetics of the entire establishment are maintained. The guest’s decision to stay and repeatedly visit the hotel in future largely depends upon the quality of the services provided. In case of hotels, room decor, facilities provided within the rooms, safety, cleanliness and hygiene are most important.

As the prime function is to maintain cleanliness and space hygiene, it is responsible for the following:
- Cleaning of public areas and guestrooms
- Supply, upkeep of laundry and exchange of various linen and uniforms.
- Internal flower arrangement and maintenance of external landscape or garden.
- Coordination and communication with other departments such as front office, restaurants, engineering, accounts, etc., through control desk.
- Pest control is also the responsibility of this department.

In order to perform these functions efficiently, the housekeeping department is divided into sections, which are as follows:
1. Housekeeping control desk — passes on the information to housekeeping staff who are working in various parts of the hotel.
2. Housekeeping management — plans, organises and controls all the activities of the housekeeping department.
3. Guestroom brigade — upkeeps and cleans the guestrooms.
4. Public area brigade — maintains cleanliness of foyer, lobby, front office and other common areas.
5. Linen and uniform room — coordinates with laundry; responsible for providing clean linen to entire establishment and uniform to all the staff.
6. Horticulture and flower arrangement team — maintains landscape of the hotel and arranges flowers in rooms and at various places.
7. Lost and found section — deposits misplaced luggage of guests.

In order to run the department efficiently it is essential to select appropriate manpower to match the various posts within. The organisational chart as given in Fig. 17.4 shows the staff hierarchy in a hotel. The organisational structure and hierarchy may vary from one organisation / hotel to another. One may appoint different individuals in different posts or have some staff ‘multi-tasking'.

Responsibilities of the housekeeping department personnel:
1. Executive Housekeeper — is responsible for managing the functioning of the department through judicious use of manpower, materials, money, time and other available resources.
2. Assistant Housekeeper — There may be one for each shift of duty in a large hotel. Prepares duty schedule and checks cleanliness and functioning of the workers.
3. Desk control supervisor — coordinates with front office for information on departure of guests, gets vacated rooms cleaned and hands over cleaned rooms. This desk should be manned 24 hours, as guests and staff contact this desk to receive or transmit information any time.

Cleaning is an integral part of any organisation/office/hotel, hence it involves planning and having a well-organised approach in selecting staff with practical housekeeping operational skills with correct cleaning procedures and skill to do the task well under a qualified supervisor to ensure quality services. Appropriate selection of specialised equipment, tools, and cleaning solutions and knowledge of latest technological applications is an essential part of training. The cleaning activities are performed either on daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal basis.

In many hotels, staff is trained for environmental conservation and eco-friendly practices such as using 100% organic cotton bed sheets, chemical-free laundry cycle and using agents which are non-toxic, water-based, hypoallergenic and biodegradable. Cards are put in hotel rooms urging the reuse of towels, promoting the saving of natural resources like water, electricity, detergent used for laundering. Use of energy-efficient light bulbs in rooms can help save electricity.