Originally Posted by
JBord
How do you figure? Replacing liquid in dispensers takes significantly longer time than placing new bottles? Or are you factoring in all the calls to housekeeping for broken, empty, or moldy/disgusting dispensers?
If, in either case, it resulted in more labor time, I'd argue that it's just opportunity cost and not a true expense for the hotels. I can't imagine anyone is going to hire additional staff or allow additional overtime just because of the dispensers. In fact, if that were the case, I'm pretty sure corporate would have heard it from owners. It's a telling sign that we aren't hearing owners fight the change -- validates the argument that they're saving money.
Hotel housekeeping is very metrics driven in any large/corporate property.
Its been a while since I've worked on production analytics/time and motion studies but it seems to me that in the current situation, the housekeeping staff likely can replace the single use plastic in seconds when cleaning the sink. In contrast, installing dispensers on the wall incurs an upfront labor cost. Replacing and cleaning the dispensers in the shower will take longer than placing daily bottles -- think of the time to enter the shower/tub to clean and replace the bottles versus putting them on the sink. Replacing isn't daily but cleaning is. Then the unlocking/replacing is certainly in the minutes, rather than seconds, albeit not on a daily basis. Additionally, I'd factor in a slight increase in workplace injuries since a housekeeper is going to trip occasionally when entered the tub to replace these. And that doesn't take into account the cost of negotiating with the unions in Hawaii, NYC, SF, etc. who will seek to negotiate something over this or grieve the change in working conditions. And, if Marriott does the right think by refilling the bottles rather than tossing them, costs will be even higher.
So, while I'm not going to do a time and motion study and would be a bit rusty, I'm fairly confident this increases housekeeping time, which is a variable cost since housekeepers are not usually on a fixed hourly week. This definitely won't be a money saver.
Getting rid of plastic bottles is the way of the world. The problem, of course, is that getting rid of them in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan won't really solve the plastic bottle problem.