The global service provider’s Norwegian branch chose Flexkeeping to cut manual processes, get measurable insights, and strengthen relationships with hotel partners.
ISS Facility Services is Norway's largest provider of outsourced hotel housekeeping services, responsible for managing full housekeeping departments across partner hotels, including executive housekeepers and their teams. With growing operational complexity and increasing expectations for transparency, ISS Norway needed a digital solution that could replace manual processes, eliminate Excel sheets, and give both management and hotel partners real-time visibility.
After searching for a better way of working, ISS Norway discovered Flexkeeping, a Mews company. What started as a simple Google search has become a key driver of efficiency, accuracy, and trust across their hotel operations.
The Challenge: Manual processes, no PMS connection, and limited transparency
ISS Norway faced a familiar set of operational pain points:
- No live connection to the booking system
- Room statuses updated manually
- Heavy reliance on Excel sheets for scheduling and workload distribution
- Slow daily opening routines
- Limited central oversight
- Difficulty demonstrating performance and workload to hotel partners
As Hanna Gjerde, Business Development Manager at ISS Hotel Services, explained:
»We didn’t have any connection to the booking system. We wanted to take away all those manual processes and get away from Excel sheets.«
For executive housekeepers, daily admin was time-consuming and inefficient:
»They would have to print everything, then sit down and manually count. It was a much bigger process than just ‘let’s go.’«
ISS needed a system that automated daily tasks, integrated with property systems, and delivered both operational control and transparency.
Why Flexkeeping: An investment in customer relationships
ISS Norway chose Flexkeeping not only for its features, but for its alignment with how they want to deliver services in the future.
Hanna highlighted 3 critical reasons:
- Gives ISS more control over their services.
- Gives customers more transparency into what work has been done.
- Provides a better flow of communication between ISS and their customers.
Compared with other tools they had tested, Hanna said Flexkeeping stood out as a platform that was constantly innovating, developing new features quickly, and, on a more human level, had a team who was easy to work with.
Implementation goals vs. What ISS achieved
ISS set three clear goals for their Flexkeeping rollout:
- Save time for executive housekeepers
- Save time for room attendants and reduce unnecessary room checks
- Provide full transparency and documentation for hotel partners
According to Hanna, all three goals have been successfully delivered on.
For executive housekeepers, the shift toward a paperless workflow cut admin times dramatically. They quickly recognized the difference, realizing they could do their staff forecasting and cleaning plans within one bus ride to work.Daily opening routines were reduced from one hour a day down to 20 minutes.
For room attendants, they were able to move quicker between rooms and have constant access to real-time information, without having to answer or make calls. The time saving compounds across dozens of hotels and hundreds of staff.
And for hotel partners, Flexkeeping’s data dashboards gave ISS the ability to validate workload distribution and cleaning times with precision, demonstrating clear value to their customers.
»By showing customers exactly what we've done, it builds more trustworthy relationships.«
Building a foundation for the future
In the immediate future, ISS plans to expand Flexkeeping across more hotels. Looking further ahead, Hanna sees technology playing an increasingly central role in outsourced housekeeping, allowing them to be even more dynamic. Robotics will be a big part of that puzzle.
»We don’t want robots to replace our people. We see them as an aid to our people, giving them more time to do their best work.«
"Before we had Excel sheets. Now we have you."
It might seem like a small shift, but ditching Excel sheets and fully digitizing housekeeping operations has allowed ISS Facility Services Norway to:
- Eliminate manual processes
- Save significant time across teams
- Improve accuracy and workload balancing
- Strengthen transparency with hotel partners
- Create a scalable, future-ready operating model
As ISS prepares for a more dynamic, data-driven future, Flexkeeping has become an essential platform for delivering high-quality, efficient, and trustworthy housekeeping services at scale.
Still running your housekeeping services with pen and paper? Book a demo to discover how the right tech can change everything.
