Brian Rodrigues, Director of Housekeeping at Ehk Planet Hollywood

Mr.Brian Rodrigues is a self motivated, quick learner, innovative, well organised, flexible and a good team player. Being an Arts Graduate he has successfully completed his diploma in Hotel Management from Mumbai and Materials Management from National Institute of Industrial Research & Development. His responsibilities envisage -planning and scheduling of the department and allocation of duties. Apart from this, Mr.Brian facilitates training and development of all team members, their performance appraisal and management. His goal is to ensure that the Housekeeping Team provides the highest quality rooms and cleanliness in accordance with international standards to achieve total guests satisfaction and the profitability of the organisation. Being in the hospitality industry for the past 23 years, he has tuned himself to adapt with the pressure of the fast paced work and modern changes and demands of the guests. He strives continuously to improve the Housekeeping standards through new environmentally friendly and innovative ideas. As any hardworking and successful individual, he aspires to be the GM of any five star hotels in Goa.

From his experience, Mr.Brain mentions that the operations in housekeeping on cruise lines is much different as compared to the hotel industry.

Mr.Brian is a very outgoing person who was fascinated by the hospitality industry which is very challenging and a place where there is constant learning. It is an industry where you can make friends, have a good rapport with people of different cultures, places and the best place to make memories for people. And this is what inspired him to join this challenging industry. As a child, he observed his mother and rightly says that mothers are the best housekeepers.

He feels that the Housekeeping department is the backbone of the Hotel industry. It is so important that the hotel industry cannot survive without the house keeping. It is a department where you can create a WOW experience for the guests. One can display their creativity, service, maintain quality and hygiene standards. It is a challenging but a unique department that is committed to devoting its services in a huge way towards the overall reputation and success of the hotel industry. His message to the youngsters wishing to join this industry is –House keeping being the nucleus of the hotel industry has a huge scope for the ones who want to prove themselves. Youngsters should start thinking in a different direction and should be proud to take up a career in housekeeping as one can move up easily in the hierarchy to become executives, managers and general managers.

Talking about his failure or rather his mistake, he informs that, while on the cruise, he misplaced the master keys which lead to theft and financial loss. He says that this incident has taught him a vital lesson that security of official valuables is indispensable.

Change in the scenario relating to competition in Goa, in addition to staff changeover and maintenance services are the challenges that he encounters in the day to day operations. He feels that the budgets are also a constraint at times, which brings about restrictions in implementation of ideas. This constraint or gap can be bridged by providing knowledge about the importance of finance in the IHM Curriculum, which will help in the smooth functioning of the business.

Mr.Brian is of the opinion that the IHM should provide more practical touch in terms of human behaviour and hotel psychology .This will facilitate better understanding of the guests, their requirements and help to provide better services to them. The human touch will help to alleviate the services and create a WOW feeling for the guests if the students are exposed to human psychology.
Relating to this he employs techniques like surprises for guests on occasion like birthdays, anniversaries. These include providing flowers, cakes, soft toys, towel art, free dinners and similar such acts of service which can create a home away from home. Mr. Brain mentions that it is not only the best facilities alone that impress the guests but most importantly, it is the human approach, gestures and treatment which create memories for them.

According to him, empathy, observation, keen listening and maintenance of high standards of hygiene play a major role to boost the guest’s experience. If ever there is a guest complaint, Mr.Brian firstly listens patiently with empathy, then makes a note of the problem, resolves it and later takes a feedback, which he mentions is very essential.

“Cleaning and organising is a practice not a project.” So Mr.Brian rightly defines hygiene as a ritual which is implemented and practised by the staff as it is essential for better clientele and practises which relate to good health in terms of cleanliness and sanitation. He says that hygiene is a vast term which encompasses various areas of the hotel like F&B, food quality, sanitation standards and processes. Hygiene is very important to give a clean and healthy environment away from cross contamination.

Lastly, his suggestion to freshers, housekeeping staff and all hoteliers is –being the children of mother earth we have to save her from the plastic menace by gradually reducing our dependence on plastic and replacing plastic by environmentally friendly and bio-degradable material, which he has already implemented in his property.

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