SUMMARY OF PRACTICAL TRAINING IN JEN HOTEL PART 6

Laundry Management in Jen Hotel
by Lim Yi Kean

          During our field trip/practical training in Jen Hotel, we were shown how both clean and dirty laundry are kept and handled. Before we got hands on with the practical training with the housekeepers, we were shown the linen room by the Executive Housekeeper, Mr.Wira, whom explained to us that dirty linen are gathered and sent off to a third-party laundromat to be cleaned. The types of items that are under the laundry management division are towels, linen, bedsheets, pillow casing and hand towels, these are often distributed according to the size of the room, and are often requested extra by guests.

          As per the standard operating procedure goes, clean and dirty laundry are often kept separate by the rooms or sections in a room they are in. The types of linen like towels, bedsheets are separated according to their linen type and on different shelves. As for dirty linen, they are tossed into bins in accordance with their types and are then sent off the ‘Penang Laundry’ for clean up.

          As seen in the picture above, the dirty linen are piled up in this room and segregated in piles according to their types. In the cleaning process, we were not briefed as much on linen cleaning process by Mr.Wira due to time constraints, but we were told that the linen are bleached regularly and kept in dry conditions after cleaning.

Dirty guests' laundry being stored in laundry bags.

          Moving on, we are then assigned to our ‘abangs’ who are the housekeepers of Jen Hotel. As we proceeded with our hands-on practical training, we were guided intensively by our ‘abangs’ during the process. We were showed how to handle laundry requests from guests, which are basically their clothes that needed cleaning. The dirty clothes are put into a laundry bag and gathered in a box kept in the housekeeper’s trolley and later deposited into their pantry to be sent down to the housekeeping department later.

          The dirty guest laundry are gathered early in the morning before 12PM and compiled in their own laundry bags before being sent off to ‘Penang Laundry’ to be laundered and sent back to the hotel before being sent back to the guest the next day. As seen in the picture above, the guest laundry must be kept in their own laundry bags and then labelled with their room number to avoid discrepancies during the redistribution period. Typically we are told that the standard amount of guest laundries requested vary from time to time with seasonal periods having the most on record.

Dirty bedsheets folded neatly and ready to be sent to housekeeping department.

          Next, we saw how dirty bedsheets are handled and put away during our practical training in housekeeping.

Evident from the picture above, the dirty bedsheets are folded neatly and kept on the bin used for dirty laundry, and are then sent over the housekeeping department to be segregated by the staffs in charge of handling the linen. The bedsheets are then replaced with clean ones by our ‘abangs’. Because our time with Jen Hotel as students going through practical training was short, this was all we had the chance to experience and take note on, we hope in the future we would be able to learn more about this division under the housekeeping department.

          In conclusion, the laundry management division is one of the most important divisions in a hotel as it makes sure that each room or facility receives enough linen to run their regular operations. Without proper laundry management, facilities like the swimming pool, spa, sauna would have difficulties running as they would be having constant discrepancies with clean linen supply.