Top 15 Housekeeping Skills and Qualities to be best on the Job

Top 15 Housekeeping Skills and Qualities to be best on the Job

For you to succeed as a housekeeper, you need to possess the right skills and qualities that the job requires.

This post provides the major skills you need to develop to be a good housekeeper and succeed in your career.

You may already have developed and applying some of the skills highlighted here, if so, great! Just keep on improving on them while working to develop more.

Before checking out the recommended skills, let’s quickly look at:

Who is a Housekeeper?

A housekeeper is a cleaning worker who is employed either in a private home or in a commercial environment like hotel.
The duties of a housekeeper include sweeping, scrubbing, mopping, polishing floors, vacuum-cleaning rugs, carpets and draperies, dusting furniture and fittings, emptying and cleaning trash containers, cleaning wash basins, mirrors, tubs and showers, and more. See detailed housekeeper job description.

Now back to the skills and qualities that make a successful housekeeper:

15 Skills and Qualities to develop to be highly sought After Housekeeper

1. Organization. Having organizational skills enables housekeepers to arrange things in an orderly and unique way. Towels need to be folded and hung in an appealing way; wet bar arranged, and many other things that will make housekeepers to be as organized as they can in order to keep the room neat. When the room is organized and well arranged, those making use of it will feel comfortable and relaxed.

2. Communication. Housekeepers who work in a hotel setting come in contact with different guests on a regular basis, so they need to communicate effectively with guests. They have to help with requests for additional personal items such as towels, soap, toilet tissue, and more. Housekeepers sometimes help in resolving complaints that a guest may have with a room that does not meet his/her standards. They need good communication skills to be able to do this effectively.

3. Laundry Skills. With this skill, housekeepers can wash and iron many cloths, sheets and towels on a daily basis. Some housekeepers launder private items for guests, but they handle them carefully to avoid damaging guests’ personal materials. Having strong laundry skills will help you a lot in your job so that you don’t cause unnecessary expenses for yourself. The laundry duties you will perform include washing, ironing, and folding clothes.

4. Honesty. Housekeepers can make mistakes sometimes or encounter accidents while on duty. They may break a glass, crack a plate while washing; tear one part of a settee or even damage a clothing material that belongs to either a guest or the hotel where they work. They should admit their error, explain the situation and make sure it never happens again. If it happens again that means the housekeeper on duty is careless and wasteful.

5. Attention to Detail. Housekeepers need the ability to pay attention even to the smallest details. They should be able to assess a room and ensure everything is in its right place. Some housekeepers take photos with their phone before they start work to ensure that after the day’s work all items are returned to the exact same place where they were removed from.

6. Active Listening. The ability to listen to the house manager’s orders makes communication easier when working as a housekeeper. A very good housekeeper will ensure he/she understands distinctly the directions given to him/her and know when to ask questions to get clarified. This skill set will help your housekeeping career get to the top because of your ability to listen and respond well in a polite way.

7. Flexibility. Most employers look for a housekeeper who can work flexibly, especially a live-in housekeeper. The housekeeper may have to cook, clean and watch over the children. A non-flexible housekeeper cannot cover most of the day’s tasks before the day runs out, but a flexible one will make every effort to assist in every situation.

8. Reliability. A good housekeeper is always reliable, loyal and dedicated enough to work excellently for the employer. It is important to work reliably with the experience you got from your previous job. When you are reliable, your employer will trust you, and you should work devotedly and with great zeal in order to keep your job going.

9. Cleaning. During your housekeeping job section, you have a bath tub to scrub and clean, bed to make, meals to get ready, linen to launder, ironing and folding and lots more work to do. Your cleaning skills will help you to work productively within a short period of time, and you will be able to keep every part of the room clean and shinning to the admiration of guests and management.

10. Cleaning Tools. Housekeepers need the ability to use certain tools such as mops and vacuum cleaners in cleaning guest rooms. They must ensure they fill up their cleaning carts with adequate supplies so they don’t waste time coming back to the department to get needed items.

11. Hardworking. Housekeepers need to put in the time and energy necessary for a polished home cleaning. Being hardworking means you have to work tirelessly to keep the environment where you work neat. The quantity of strength you show at work should be increased in order to make your employer happy.

12. Caring. A careless housekeeper can easily break or lose valuable things while handling the usual daily chores. However, a housekeeper who is caring will handle things with utmost care as if those things were his or hers.

Some would not try to economize while on duty because they probably believe their boss has enough money to replace anything they might destroy through their carelessness. As a caring housekeeper, you should let your employer see your caring attitude by taking proper care of his house in a way that you would do to your own home.

13. Trustworthiness. Your employer can only leave his/her house under your custody when he/she has proven you to be trustworthy. You should look for a way to get a professional trustworthy attitude, especially when you are working as a live-in housekeeper. All the same, even part-time hotel maids and cleaning staff have a key responsibility that requires a deep level of trust.

14. Self Control. The housekeeping job requires that you comport yourself in a professional way that will make you to keep your emotions and anger under control, and avoid aggressive behavior even in tough times. Your employer should always see smiles on your face so that they don’t think you are not happy with your job. They need to leave their home to a happy worker and not a sadist.

15. Innovation. The housekeeping job requires that housekeepers become creative, so that they can use alternative opinion to form new ideas and provide answers to problems that are related to their job. Innovation is most important during challenging moments of your job. It will help you with the ability to introduce new plans as means of increasing your job productivity.

Housekeeping Skills and Qualities for Resume

If you are writing a resume for a housekeeping job, you can quickly and easily make the core competence or skills section of your resume by applying the above housekeeping skills and qualities if you have developed them.

This will help to make your resume strong as these are the skills and qualities recruiters commonly look for when hiring for the housekeeping position.

Conclusion:

Are you a housekeeper who wants to excel in your career? Or have you been looking for the skills you can use in your housekeeping job in order to impress your employer? If yes, then the skills and qualities shared in this post will help you if you develop them.

Employers can also make these skills part of the requirements that applicants for the job of a housekeeper must meet to be eligible for an interview.