AA announces Housekeeper of the Year Award 2011
13.7.2011 Three top Housekeepers celebrated in style the annual AA Housekeeper of the Year lunch. The annual awards sponsored by Northmace & Hendon is in its fourth year of running was held at the Galvin at Windows restaurant at the London Hilton on Park Lane.
Lisa Williams, winner of the AA Housekeeper of the Year award, joined the Park Plaza County Hall in December 2009. Lisa manages a large team of 76 housekeepers. The judges selected Lisa as the overall winner not only due to her housekeeping standards, which are consistently of the highest quality, but also due to her attention to detail, her pride in her work, and her dedicated commitment to ensuring that her team of staff are happy and motivated.
Runner up Susan Brougham has worked for the Matfen Hall Hotel since January 1999 and manages 16 members of Housekeeping staff. The hotels general manager Rhys McKinnel praised Susan for ‘always performing above and beyond the call of duty’ and referred to as a ‘a true hospitality professional and has been in the industry for over 40 years’ and went on to say that ‘Susan is one of the best there is, dedicated, hard working, loyal and an inspiration to those around her’.
Runner up Praxeda Kassami has been the Executive Housekeepers at The Cavendish for ten years and leads a team of over forty people. The hotels director Ciaran Fahy praised Praxeda’s abilities, maintaining that she ‘consistently delivered outstanding guest satisfaction and employee engagement, she leads from the front briefing the team daily and she spends time on the floors checking and ensuring the team have the resources to meet and exceed our standards’.
Simon Mahon, General Manager of the Park Plaza County Hall, said Lisa doesn’t just manage her team effectively, she cares for them and explained that since joining the team Lisa has integrated the large team of mixed hotel and agency employees into a true one team which works hard for the property they are in and delivers truly amazing results. ‘Lisa is simply inspirational; she is a true ambassador for Housekeepers everywhere. She is passionate, focused, caring and driven. She consistently delivers fantastic results for our guests while leading and developing her people in exactly the right way’ and also simply stating ‘I am proud to work with her’.
Rudi Plaut CBE, Chairman of Northmace & Hendon Limited, said: “Research has shown that the state of the bedroom is the single most important factor in deciding a guest’s future return to a hotel. Like all businesses, the success of a hotel depends upon its loyal, repeat customers or guests, so housekeeping is at the very heart of the establishment.
“Northmace congratulates Lisa Williams on beating such strong competition from many worthy housekeeping professionals to win this year’s coveted title of AA Housekeeper of the Year. Like all good housekeepers, it is the leadership that she provides for her team at Park Plaza County Hall, including her dedication to their training and development, that produces such outstanding results. Of course a part of that leadership is the example which she sets by the combination of her personal commitment and development.”
"Congratulations too must go to the worthy runners-up who also showed the great professionalism which is necessary for making the pivotal position of Housekeeper a success, making the final decision on the winner a close call."