Housekeeping supervisors manage cleaning crews. They schedule, evaluate and supervise others. Housekeeping managers typically keep track of inventory such as toiletries, paper products and cleaning solutions, perhaps ordering when necessary, so they may need to manage a budget. Their responsibilities often include reporting maintenance and equipment issues to property managers or owners. They often train new employees and may even be responsible for hiring and firing. Supervisors spend much of their time managing, but they may perform regular cleaning duties, as well.
Technical schools and community colleges, in particular, may offer one-semester or one-year certificate programs that focus on housekeeping management. Programs, such as the one from Wake Tech Community College (waketech.edu) in hotel management, are most common. Courses include housekeeping issues such as sanitation and safety but also general management concepts such as front office procedures, hospitality supervision, meetings and conventions, hotel and restaurant accounting and introduction to hospitality. Wake Tech's certificate requires 17 credits.
Many schools offer associate degrees in hospitality or hotel management, a slightly broader focus than housekeeping management. Associate degrees generally take about two years to complete. They include general education requirements such as composition, math, social studies, arts and humanities and laboratory sciences. Hotel management programs like the one at Mohawk Valley Community College (mvcc.edu) include courses such as food preparation, safety and sanitation, marketing, principles of management, computer applications, property and housekeeping management and convention services. MVCC also requires a six-credit internship.
An even broader degree that includes housekeeping management coursework is the facility management degree. Facility managers coordinate departments in all kinds of organizations and institutions such as schools, office buildings and rental properties. The classes for such supervisory degrees teach building structure and maintenance topics such as electrical and plumbing systems, safety codes and compliance, space planning and organization such as construction basics and interior design strategies and property management principles. Schools offer these degrees at associate, bachelor's and graduate levels.