Hotel Cateys 2023: Housekeeper of the Year – Gosia Oszkiel, the Grand Brighton

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“Inspiring”, “passionate” and “committed” were all words used by our experienced judges to describe Gosia Oszkiel. The executive housekeeper of the Grand Brighton hotel stood out in what was a very competitive category, with a record number of exceptionally high-quality entries for the award this year.

Oszkiel joined the Grand Brighton as a temporary supervisor 10 years ago and, despite initially only taking the role as a summer job, has risen to become manager of the biggest team in the hotel. She oversees 54 staff with 18 different nationalities, 30% of whom have worked at the Grand for more than three years. She ended last year with zero vacancies and team members have consistently named her as their favourite manager, while her internal development strategy has seen three people promoted over the year.

Even when colleagues have left to pursue other opportunities, their positive experience working with Oszkiel has led many back to the hotel. In the past year, six former team members have returned to work with her and continue to grow their careers under her leadership.

Oszkiel leads from the front and participates in all hotel activities, including pumpkin carving at Halloween, hosting quizzes, offering rewards, and running a ‘nationality breakfast’ to show staff how much they are valued. When asked to give engagement scores across key performance areas, 100% of her team rated her as ‘brilliant-at-it’ in all sections.

To cope with occupancies of over 95% during the summer, Oszkiel recruited a plethora of students who moved to weekend-only contracts in September to allow term-time-only workers to be hired on a flexible basis. This change to staffing structure has allowed her to maintain consistently high standards. Guest feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and the Grand Brighton has credited her work with contributing to its profit growth and surpassing of both occupancy and revenue targets.

Outside of her main role, Oszkiel volunteers with loneliness charity Together Co at coffee mornings and befriending events and has competed in both a Tough Mudder Challenge and SantaDash over the past year, raising over £1,500 for the hotel’s chosen charities. She has also become an active member of the UK Housekeepers Association and organised industry events.

This dedication to her role and the wider housekeeping sector led our judges to praise Oszkiel as not just a worthy winner of this award, but a person who stood out as the future of the industry.

What the judges said

“Inspiring community work. Looks after her team. A person for the future.” Lisa Williams

“She continues to excel year after year and promotes the role of housekeeping in a hotel. She looks after her staff and is committed to development of not only herself but her team. She is the future of the industry.” Amelia Laurence

###The shortlist

• Adina Ionescu, Leonardo Royal Hotel Birmingham
• Gosia Oszkiel, The Grand Brighton
• Natalie McNally, Hotel Café Royal
• Julie Rogers, The Lowry hotel
• Kristina Veselyte, Red Carnation Hotel Collection