Mohammed Nazeer Khan, Executive Housekeeper at IHG, Holiday Inn Resort Goa

Mr. Mohammed Nazeer Khan is in his middle and has been working at the Holiday Inn Resort in Goa for the past 25 years out of which he has spent 21 years as the Executive Housekeeper. When asked about his inspirations and views about choosing this profession, Nazeer said that he was inspired by his guru, Ms. Guri Walia wo is the background of The Oberoi group. She chose Nazeer during the campus placements for the Howard Park Plaza International, he mentions that he had tried to get a job in the front office because housekeeping is a highly challenging and difficult job. But since Ms. Guri chose him for the housekeeping department, he went above and beyond to adapt to all the methods of housekeeping, attended all the rigorous trainings which challenged him to the very core; only because he did not want to disappoint her. He also thought it will be a good option, because a person gets numerous chances to opt for jobs abroad when in this particular field.

Nazeer is highly enthusiastic about his profession and recommends the same to youngsters and juniors, he believes in it because housekeeping is extremely future oriented. Also, the Housekeeping Department is not only in the Hospitality Industry but everywhere. However, all you need to do is focus on learning as much as you can, along with it your concentration and eye for detail should be developed as well. Nazeer also stresses upon being passionate about this profession and have patience, because there are many growth opportunities in it. Quoting Nazeer he says, “You can choose any department, but once you do, make sure that you master it and be the best; that is when you will be successful.”

Every person in this world faces some or the other failure in their life. During the interview, Nazeer was asked to shed light on his failures and what he learnt from it. He believes that his key failure was wasting a lot of time. “I was working constantly, I gave in a lot of time to my job, learnt a lot of skills, worked constantly in one organisation for 15 years. And I was rewarded for it with promotions and positions of HOD level. I was satisfied with my job, was loyal to my company, working hard and this produced a lot of benefits for my company. Having said that, as everybody knows of the nature of us the hoteliers are dedicated and have long working hours as well, and that was one of the reasons why I was lazy enough to not start anything on my own, and I regret it. I wish I would’ve tried to expose my talent, my skills in my profession and made something out of it. Now due to the lockdown, and because of the salary and job cuts, I thought of doing something on my own. Hence, I decided to start something new in the market which benefits the society and at the same time helps me out as well. I worked hard over the idea, and started my business consultancy and advisory services. I planned a few projects to be launched in two months, and within those two months my business received amazing response.” Nazeer also suggest the youngsters to take this as an example and keep pursuing their passions apart from their jobs, to make something of their own.

We as humans, have basic needs. Each one of us, privileged or not, we all need those things to function properly. When asked which of these basic needs should be taken care of by the management, Nazeer said, “The basic needs that the management should surely take care of are things like involvement in the team during practical trainings, should conduct personal counselling, provide appropriate guidance to the team members, ensure complete transparency in the team and the management, and delegate enough responsibilities to everyone. We being seniors, know almost all the jobs and SOP will still be considered as less important as compared to our juniors, the point is that they need to know the responsibilities and it should be delegated to them, so that they can also handle the area properly in the absence of the seniors. We will not lose anything by sharing valuable information, perhaps you might end up gaining even more than you knew by discussion with the juniors.”

Goals are to be given one of the most important places in a persons’ life. Mr. Nazeer believes in higher goals that a person should always set for themselves. He says “Apart from my busy schedule at my daily job, my next higher goal is to become a good brand ambassador for Housekeeping to the society. In the last couple of decades our talented chefs’ have been exposing their skills and knowledges to the society that inspired millions of people all around the globe with their live demos, trainings, their inputs and hard work. Similarly, it is time for us to show the society especially during this pandemic and post pandemic that how important it is to adhere to good Housekeeping, cleaning, hygiene, face washing, sanitization and disinfecting; along with this their benefits as well. All these are Housekeeping strategies and this is the time when we should go out and expose our talents and skills. As of now I have been associated with 2 Pvt. Ltd companies for Housekeeping management consultations and planning to explore more.

Here’s my advice to the companies is to primarily introduce only 3-4 essential services for the non 5-star hotels, whereas for the other multi-national companies the services should be professional sanitization, spring cleaning, pest control, home delivery, laundry and facilities managements. Various other companies provide the same services but not professionally. Hence, what I always suggest them to do is, that give the services like 5 stars by upgrading the sanitisation machine with ULV fogger machines, using Virex II instead of sodium hypochlorite; also offer spring cleaning for the residential, offices, Govt. building, banks etc. This would ensure that the society benefits with high standard of cleaning and hygiene quality easily with minimum cost.”

Every guest prefers something a little differently, Mr. Nazeer being a specialist in the Housekeeping strategies suggest that the guest most like a zero-defect room. A room which is 100% clean and Hygienic, great quality food. Overall, the guest doesn’t want to be disturbed due to any issue or any complaint, because the guest had paid 100% for the stay and the same value of service is expected by the guest, that’s the reason his IHG has launched a 100% guest satisfaction vision ,’IHG clean promise’ and ‘Hospitality promise’.