How do I Become an Executive Housekeeper?
To become an executive housekeeper, you'll most likely need to have between one and two years of experience in the positions you want to oversee. Executive housekeepers manage staff and solve problems, but also do the work themselves if it's needed. Larger or luxury hotels typically have this kind of position available, so this is where you should try to get interviews.
When you're building your experience as a hotel housekeeper in order to eventually become an executive in charge of other cleaners, pay attention to the successful attributes and actions of your leader. Getting work experience while reporting to an executive housekeeper can help you learn leadership techniques, if you pay attention on the job. Often, learning how to perform the job requires more studying on your own than formal education, and you'll need to understand exactly what hotels and clients expect in room cleanliness.

Although becoming an executive housekeeper may not require formal education, a business certificate in institutional management can certainly give you relevant skills. Earning a formal certificate also shows prospective hotel employers that you are career-focused and professionally capable of leading a team. If you want to become an executive housekeeper, be sure to list your specific leadership capabilities as well as project management skills on your resume. Hotel managers want to trust that the housekeeping department will be run effectively; if you can convince them that you're the person to do this, then you have a good chance of getting the job.

Leadership skills are definitely necessary for this position. If you can't motivate those who report to you to get the work done according to the hotel's expectations, you could end up having to complete the cleaning yourself. Good leaders motivate and inspire others to accomplish team tasks. Executive housekeepers are responsible for meeting hotel standards for cleanliness as well as for making sure cleaning supply cupboards are stocked. They must keep to a budget, which often means monitoring the amounts of supplies housekeepers are using.

If you want to work in a luxury hotel, you may be able to start at the bottom and move up in the industry. Many executives first begin as housekeepers in budget or standard hotels and work their way up in responsibility as well as reputation. You'll need to have a professional, mature attitude at all times as well as good communication skills to thrive in the leadership role of executive housekeeper.
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Discussion Comments
The executive housekeepers who make the most money are definitely those who have a team of people working under them. The best ones are those who have actually worked as a housekeeper because they understand how the work needs to be done because they have done it themselves.
You can complete an executive housekeeping certification program in some places, but many times years of experience will substitute for this type of certification.
If you want to work as an executive housekeeper for a luxury hotel and don't have the training or experience that is required, you can start out as a regular housekeeper.
Many times there is quite a high turnover with these positions, so if you work hard and prove yourself, you can sometimes advance quickly.
You will still need to put in some time and get some experience, but with a proven track record it will be much easier to apply for positions that offer you the opportunity to make more money and have some people under you.
It is not hard to find housekeeper jobs, but you should expect to work hard. Once you get in a position where you have some employees under you is when you need to do less of the physical work, but then you are responsible for more of the management end of it.
Any sort of job where you supervise cleaning really needs you to have good teaching skills. While in a slightly different industry, I have worked in a few restaurants and had some issues at times with the managers who trained me not being good at teaching me to do my job both thoroughly and effectively. As in a hotel or anywhere else involving cleaning, restaurants need to meet a specific level of appearance and function, and people need to be taught to do it well, and fast, from the start. If you are not willing to help train people to do these things, it might not be good for you to supervise others in this type of work.
@runner101 - The salary range for a housekeeper tends to be between 18,000 and 27,000. As with most jobs, what your duties are and where you work will affect your pay.
I like your sister, love to get in a groove and clean till I saw significant results so when I was younger worked as a housekeeper.
Another suggestion to your sister: if she likes kids, she could earn some children care-taking experience via working in a daycare or babysitting. Then if she added the housekeeping experience to that experience she could work as a nanny; which can be a very rewarding career.
My sister is one of those people who love to clean and is currently, like many people since the recession, unemployed. She loves to clean because she likes how she can see a difference from when she started a job to when she finishes that job.
I found this executive housekeeper position article and thought it would be a good fit for her, until I saw that you had to manage many people. My sister is still young and although I believe she will be a leader; right now, she is still learning those leadership skills.
So until then I will continue to help her look for housekeeping jobs to get experience for jobs such as executive housekeeper. Does anyone know what a housekeeper's salary should be in a non-resort area?
Many people would be surprised to find out that executive housekeepers can actually earn a really good income.
It is one of those jobs where a degree is not required in any way and doesn’t always help you even if you have one.
However, in resort communities, these folks are hot commodities. For instance, I live near Myrtle Beach and it is a regular thing for people from my community to head down throughout the summer filling in temporary positions as housekeepers.
You can really make good money doing that, but the people who go into supervising can make almost a hundred grand a year. No kidding – I know people who have done it.
The way that it works is that they take on several housekeepers under themselves, and pay them an hourly wage – say ten bucks an hour.
However, the supervisors are still getting paid the much more lucrative original price. They take on, say 20 or 30 employees and you’re talking big bucks.
I will tell you a fact, and that is that being a hotel or vacation rental housekeeper is no easy task.
I picked up a summer position with a local vacation realty agent to bring in some extra cash on the weekends, and I was really surprised at what you were expected to do in a short amount of time, and sometimes for only a little money.
Of course, I found out later that the company I was working for had bad executive housekeepers who kept all of the better paying clients for themselves and gave others the bare bones payers.
However, a person can make as much as a thousand bucks a weekend once they get the hang of it. Now, that is if you are really moving, but it is not unheard of at all.
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