Ever wonder about the magic required for a small cadre of people to clean hundreds of hotel rooms every single day? What has to happen behind the scenes so your room is made up and waiting for you when you check in, no matter what the hour? Executive Travel talked recently with Debbie Babar, director of operations at the Sheraton Parsippany in New Jersey. She oversees the staff who keep that hotel running smoothly, including the housekeeping department.

What is a typical day like for you?
I usually get in at 7:00 or 7:30. I look at the revenues from the night before. I look at the upcoming day and see how many clean rooms we have for the start of the day. I look at arrival and departure patterns. I double-check staffing. From there, I have a 9:00 operations meeting that I host on a daily basis. In that meeting, I would have in attendance my chief engineer, my director of housekeeping and my front office manager, and we discuss incoming groups and any potential challenges so that we can address them. So, there's a lot of prep work in the morning. Afterwards, I do a walk-through of the property; I walk the entire building. Then, throughout the day, I would come back and read emails, and I'd go to a series of meetings—maybe a forecast meeting, or sales and strategy, or revenue maximization. We have the Sheraton Service Promise at our hotel, so we have a defects meeting that I attend on a weekly basis as well. This is to proactively resolve issues for our guests.

When does the day end?
Anywhere between 6:00 and 7:00, depending on the day.

How is room cleaning scheduled? What strategy is used to be sure nobody is left waiting for a room?
It starts out with the front office. We try our best to get arrival times. In the 9:00 meeting, we discuss how many departures we have and how many are departing early in the day. By 9:00 a.m., the bulk of your departures will be gone during the week. We try to match up the times to make sure the customer gets what they're expecting. What I mean by that is that we'll look at bed types, and we'll look at upgrade opportunities for our platinum guests. We do room blocks. Then each room is assigned to the room attendants. We have our section managers, who are our housekeeping supervisors, who are up on the guest floors. And they have a list of the arrival times of the individual guests. They'll go to the room attendants to ask them to clean this room first or finish up with this room and go here if someone is arriving early. So, that's the prep work.

Do you offer the "green" water conservation program so guests can opt out of having their linens changed daily?
We do. I would say on average 25 percent of our customers participate in the program. The numbers are much higher—more along the lines of 50 and 70 percent—during the week. You have experienced travelers during the week, and they're familiar with the program. On the weekends, the numbers are different.

Are travelers tipping housekeeping as they used to?
We definitely have less people that tip these days. It's something that is not spoken about.

What is the recommended tip for room attendants?
When I do get asked that question, I recommend $2 a day, and if [guests] are staying a longer period of time, $10 a week. But it depends on the individual and how they would like to tip.

How does a guest know the right person receives the tip?
It goes to the room attendant who cleans the room on the day the tip was given. Most of our room attendants are assigned sections, so you really have the same room attendant cleaning the majority of your stay, with the exception of days off. If we receive a $10 tip, we do go back and look at the individual worksheets for the days and give, for example, $6 to one room attendant and $4 to the other.

What happens to the small bottles of shampoo and other toiletries when only a tiny amount is used by a guest? Can they be recycled or donated?
No, for safety and security purposes, anything that is opened is discarded and thrown away. The individual bottles are taped and once the tape is broken, they're thrown away.

What is the most fun part of your job?
The people. I have an opportunity to interact with everybody in the hotel, and my associates are just wonderful.

What do you think your hotel guests would be surprised to know?
I think it would be how much planning is done in order to ensure that the guest has a pleasant stay with us. If you look at a particular room as an example, a room attendant is assigned one room for every 30 minutes that they work. So, they're cleaning 16 rooms a day, which equals 32 beds for a lot of them. I think guests would be surprised at how hard these folks are working to be sure theirs is a great stay.