Modern PMS technology is stepping up to ease the ongoing struggles of housekeeping teams
By Audrey MacRae
Housekeepers are the backbone of the hotel industry, but they need a little help to support our business today. Rising guest expectations and the need for greater efficiency have been a drain on housekeepers’ ability to keep pace with the needs of their position. Therefore, many independent hotel operators are reworking their approach to technology to give housekeeping teams a hand.
The timing for these investments couldn’t be better. Hotels can ill afford to squander talented housekeepers today. The Hotel Association of Canada listed ongoing labor shortages as one of the most significant challenges impacting hotels in 2025, while a survey from the American Hotel & Lodging Association found 64 percent of respondents reported a lack of available labor.
Hotels repair this issue by embracing technology and integrations that can improve the housekeeping experience for everyone. Independent hotels benefit from a tech stack supported by an all-in-one property-management system (PMS) designed to present all of a property’s key information in one place and supported by key integrations.
Here are four ways improving the hotel’s All-In-One PMS can help alleviate housekeepers’ aches and pains:
1. Stronger Communications
Improving on-property communication should be one of the most significant priorities today for all hotel partners, particularly between departments, but this push should also extend to guests. By connecting all parties through seamless, two-way SMS communications routed through the hotel’s PMS, operators can improve their awareness and agility when responding to guest requests. By adapting to shifts in housekeeping requests and reducing time spent traveling across a property to deliver information, housekeepers are freed up to do more cleaning tasks.
A strong communications strategy also includes tracking guest comments, reviews, inquiries and complaints and routing them from the PMS to the necessary departments. In practice, the housekeeping and maintenance departments can be informed of any issues in real time, allowing them to instantly respond with clean towels, extra sheets or an attentive eye to specific issues.
This is a game changer for the housekeeping department, which has typically been isolated from other areas of the hotel and out of the loop on important communications. Using SMS capabilities tied to the PMS means housekeepers can be privy to crucial information that can preserve a positive guest experience or head off negative review.
2. Control Over the Experience
Communication between departments is invaluable, but there is a limit to how effective it can be when distilled into words. Instead, many hotels today are adopting All-In-One PMS tools with the ability to flag individual rooms for housekeeping or maintenance service, which are then added directly into a housekeeper’s existing workflow. Add mobile tools and soft check-in features to the mix and it is a perfect ecosystem for efficiency among operations teams and improved guest experiences.
By removing ambiguity from operation needs and guest expectations, hotels can position their housekeepers where they are most valuable, particularly when informed by data from other departments. When an All-in-One PMS is connected to the hotel’s booking engine, revenue management system and point of sale system hotel operations teams will have a full picture of their property, its priority guests and how to best serve them.
Hotels should also consider expanding their workers’ access to property information in some instances, particularly scheduling. Businesses that improve worker scheduling flexibility A 2024 report titled Flex Work Nation: Redefining How America Works found that 77 percent of workers place flexible schedules at the top of their list of priorities within the job market. Today’s technology has simplified the process of delivering these capabilities to workers and has the potential to enhance your team’s job satisfaction.
3. Provide Tools for Growth
Housekeeping can be an overwhelming position. Housekeepers are expected to quickly and thoroughly turn over rooms, keep pace with changing priorities and even interact with guests throughout the day. With proper training and support, housekeepers can be ideal ambassadors for a hotel due to their visibility. But without it, hotels are setting their workers up for failure. The best way to empower your housekeeping team is to strip away the complexity throughout their day and consolidate all of their operations into one PMS dashboard.
Today’s hoteliers are quickly catching on to the need for expanded training and support tools, with a recent study finding companies increased their training budgets by an average of 14 percent in 2023. This includes new options for e-learning, video training and other options to help new hires efficiently onboard and refresh knowledge in longtime team members. When integrated directly into the hotel PMS, training offerings can improve awareness and agility of what is needed to succeed early in a worker’s hospitality journey.
First impressions are everything in hospitality. When workers see hoteliers taking the time to equip them with the skills and tools they need to be successful, they will stand with their property and team members. These investments can help reduce turnover and grow revenue by improving guest satisfaction. Most importantly, it sets a good example to build solid relationships within your hotel environment which can create a more harmonious work experience.
4. Reward Workers
All hotel employees want to be recognized for their hard work and the value they bring to the property, especially housekeepers. This responsibility is not exclusively on hotel ownership, but they can play a part in improving their experience by instituting digital tipping across their hotel. The simpler it is to tip hotel employees, the more often guests will do so. Every hotel worker needs to be able to quickly provide an avenue to receive digital tips, and the best way to do so is through embedded payment options right in the PMS. There, hoteliers will have all the controls they need to ensure tips reach the correct parties and are consistently tracked over time.
Digital tipping has broken into the mainstream, with a 2024 study finding associates take home an estimated additional $375 more per week when it is available to consumers. Offering digital tipping is more than a convenience for your guests, it allows travelers to embrace the service elements of hospitality despite our increasingly cashless society. This mobile service creates further customer touchpoints to associate with your property, and when networked directly through the hotel PMS, it can be employed without adapting to any new technology.
Housekeepers have long supported the hospitality industry during its most challenging, trying moments. Now that PMS capabilities exist to help ease their daily operations, it’s on hotel leaders to show their employees that there can be a better way to run their business–one that supports workers and their daily endeavors without getting in their way. And it can all be available in one place, right where they expect it.
About the Author
Audrey MacRae is the Vice President of Maestro, the preferred cloud and on-premises PMS solution for independent hotels, luxury resorts, conference centers, vacation rentals, and multi-property groups. Maestro was first to market with a fully integrated Windows PMS and Sales & Catering solution and is continuing that trend with leading edge web and mobile based solutions encompassing all aspects of the operation. Platform and deployment independence present Maestro as an investment that will continue to grow and adapt as innovative technologies emerge.
