Hotel Housekeeping Duties and Responsibilities: Essential Guide

What are the hotel housekeeping department duties and responsibilities? We all know that housekeepers are responsible for keeping the property and the hotel rooms clean and tidy. But in this comprehensive guide, we explore the details of every person behind that great ‘teamwork’.

The size of the housekeeping team depends on the size of the hotel. For example, a tiny hotel can employ a single person to a few staff to maintain the keeping of the property. 

However, in a large hotel with hundreds or thousands of rooms, the housekeeping team has several people to do different tasks. And, it makes the Housekeeping Department the largest among others, headed by an Executive Housekeeper and an Assistant Executive Housekeeper.

Why Is Hotel Housekeeping Important?

The hotel’s housekeeping team is responsible for more than just cleaning rooms and other areas of the property. They are responsible for upholding the brand’s image through:

Hotel Housekeeping Services:

• Guests’ and staff’s health & safety by maintaining the hygienic standard throughout the property and the garden area by keeping every area clean and tidy including day in and day out.
• Prepare every room in perfect condition as per standard, and have a supervisor inspect the rooms to confirm their readiness for guest arrivals.
• Plan, stock, fill, and refill guests’ amenities and linen (bed sheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths, napkins).
• Regularly clean and maintain the hotel’s furniture, fixtures, carpets, etc. When needed report damages to the hotel’s repairs/engineering department. This ensures the untimely replacement of such items.
• Report room conditions such as clogged toilets, faulty shower handles, leaking bathroom, air conditioner issues, etc. It helps the Front Office team handle the situation accordingly without affecting guest services (as such they can move the guest to a different room if it is an in-house guest). Similarly, the FO team can change the room status to Out of Service until the repairs department fixes the issue.

• The team is responsible for the laundry services of staff uniforms, guest laundry, and hotel linen cycle (bedsheets, towels, face towels, hand towels, tablecloths, napkins, or any linen, and curtains used in the hotel).
• When necessary, the housekeeping laundry tailor alters, adjusts, and repairs staff uniforms, guest garments, linens, and curtains.
• They check and report on room discrepancies, such as if the checked-in guest is still in-house or has left the property without checking out (‘Skip’ in hotel terms) — Those with scanty baggage. Or, if a guest occupies a room without a booking record in the hotel PMS system (‘Sleep’ in hotel terms).
• They are responsible for storing lost/left-behind belongings of hotel guests and returning them when the guest calls to recollect them. Handling lost items is known as ‘Lost & Found,’ and each hotel has its standard policy on managing such situations.
• While the guests check out, housekeeping staff checks for damages to the room and reports to the Front Desk/HK supervisor. In addition, they check for the room’s minibar and report any consumption to the Front Desk for billing the guests.
• Maintain, and restock guest amenities, cleaning and gardening supplies, and liquids.
• The hotel’s floral arrangements enhance not only the aesthetics and ambiance of the property but also help guests ease off stress and anxiety. Likewise, this is another area where the housekeeping team’s contribution is indispensable.
• Such a large operation around the clock needs careful planning and assignment of resources based on the hotel system’s forecast reports. The Housekeeping manager or executive housekeeper adjusts the staffing and prepares the duty rosters accordingly.

To meet an enormous, highly critical operation, a hotel needs a large team of experienced professionals. Let’s see who they are.

Hotel Housekeeping Department Chart

Duties and Responsibilities of Housekeeping Staff

Based on the chart above, we outline the primary responsibilities of each position. However, tasks, responsibilities, and sometimes reporting structures may vary from one hotel to another or chain to chain.

Duties of Executive Housekeeper in A Hotel

• As the above organizational chart, an Executive Housekeeper takes every responsibility for the hotel’s housekeeping as a person in charge of this large department.

• The Executive Housekeeper reports to the General Manager, Rooms Division Manager, or Executive Assistant Manager (Deputy GM).

• Her primary duty is to ensure the team follows the hotel’s standard operating procedure (SOP) in every task and adheres to proper use of PPE for hotel housekeeping while performing their duties, cleaning hotel rooms, public/private areas, and gardens.

• Planning, hiring, and firing resources, scheduling resources daily, and looking after their well-being and training needs are other crucial areas, including staff performance monitoring and people development.

• She is also responsible for recommending, maintaining, and coordinating repairs of housekeeping equipment and supplies. Additionally, the Executive Housekeeper oversees the inventory of amenities and linen services.

• Finally, an Executive Housekeeper prepares financial reports and departmental budgets.

Housekeeping Secretary / Housekeeping Coordinator

• Unlike an executive secretary whose primary job is to assist her boss, the Executive Housekeeper with secretarial tasks, and also manages other tasks involving her department and assists and coordinates with almost everyone in the department.

• As she is the only one sitting in the department most of the time, she handles telephone calls from external and internal callers and coordinates and assigns tasks to relevant members.

• She drafts letters for her boss and the Assistant Housekeeper and has access to the bosses’ emails to reply when necessary. Additionally, she manages housekeeping-related tasks in the hotel’s property management system, including printing room status reports and updating any discrepancies reported by her colleagues on the guest floors, including ‘Do Not Disturb’ room status in the hotel system.

• She acts as the point of contact for other departments, such as the Front Office; let’s say, for instance, a guest has arrived before his scheduled/expected time of arrival. FO staff calls HK and asks to prioritize preparing that room. Despite this process being systemized in the modern PMS software, traditionally, FO staff calls the HK. So, she passes the information to the relevant supervisor in the area to handle the situation. Likewise, she coordinates with the Repairs/Maintenance department for any room repairs-related issues.

• She also prepares housekeeping task assignments sometimes, prints task sheets in the system, and distributes them among the room attendants in the absence of the bosses.

• She maintains the list of Lost and Found items and coordinates with the Front Office team in handling reclaims by the guests along with Exec. Housekeeper, FO manager, and Security department, depending on the item’s category and value.

Assistant Executive Housekeeper or Simply, Assistant Housekeeper

• Follow up with inter-departmental communication and follow up with the Repairs department on room damage fixes. And monitor the overall administration of the department with the Executive Housekeeper.

Hotel Housekeeping Laundry Manager

• The Laundry Manager is someone who handles administrative tasks while having a great understanding of the laundry equipment and chemicals used in the hotel housekeeping laundry.

• He is fully responsible for laundry operations in-house and outside laundry if the hotel is catering laundry services to outside customers in line with the brand standards.

• He is responsible for planning resources, including employees, according to the hotel’s occupancy forecast.

• Maintenance/repairs of laundry equipment with the hotel’s Maintenance department (Repairs Dept.), and training staff on the machinery usage in coordination with the hotel’s training department.

• He is also responsible for the hotel staff uniforms, guest garments coming into the laundry, and linen services.

Public Area Supervisor (Housekeeping Supervisor Grade)

• As the title suggests, the Public Area Supervisors are responsible for ensuring public areas such as the hotel lobby, walkways, common toilets, and staff areas are clean and tidy and reflect standard ambiance throughout the hotel and the day. Basically, every area except guestrooms that are directly under Floor Supervisors.

• He is also responsible for carrying out periodic and on-demand training for Public Area Attendants on the hotel’s standard cleaning procedures, including proper chemical equipment usage.

• Most of the time on the roam, he is tasked with scheduling deep cleaning tasks in areas where necessary and handling the hotel’s Lost & Found procedure.

• He reports and works closely with the Assistant Executive Housekeeper. The shifts can change from Public Area to Floor Supervising, so he is also trained on Floor Supervisor tasks.

Floor Supervisor (Housekeeping Supervisor Grade)

• Floor Supervisors work closely with the Assistant Housekeeper, and are responsible for ensuring rooms are cleaned by the room attendants as per the standard and provide housekeeping status reports to the bosses. 

• They carry the master key of the hotel and help the attendants get into the rooms to complete cleaning tasks. When the attendants complete the task, supervisor approves that the room is in perfect condition set by the brand, and ready to be occupied by changing the room status to ‘Inspected’. See the ‘Rooms Statuses’ section for details on this.

• They are also responsible for maintaining inventories of cleaning items at floor-level pantries, coordinating with other operating departments on matters related to them, such as rooms requiring repairs, fulfilling floor guest requests with the FO department or others, or reporting to the Security department of any security hazards.

• Their responsibilities can continue with anything concerning rooms and guests.

Laundry Supervisor (Housekeeping Supervisor Grade)

• The Laundry Supervisor reports to the Laundry Manager/Assistant Executive Housekeeper; he oversees the whole operation of the hotel laundry and makes sure quality standards are always maintained.

• He has a good knowledge of machines and chemicals used in the cleaning procedure and trains the other laundry staff on the skills. And, coordinates with other relevant departments on repairs and ensures enough stock of chemicals is always maintained.

• Checks the hotel’s occupancy status and allocates adequate staff on duty to meet the demand.

Linen Room Supervisor (Housekeeping Supervisor Grade)

A hotel has several linen needs, such as staff uniforms, guests’ garments, bedsheets, pillowcases, towels, tablecloths, napkins, and curtains, to operate smoothly and with the standard.

The Linen Room is the section of the hotel where these needs are processed and managed daily with a linen cycle, such as linen being ready today, being washed for tomorrow, and being stripped from the rooms for washing tomorrow, and the cycle continues.

• The supervisor of the Linen Room is responsible for keeping records of all the items that come into the laundry for processing and delivering them accurately as per the standards with the help of his team.

Florists

Head Gardner

• The Head Gardner is responsible for maintaining the best appearance of the ground with the help of his team of gardeners and coordination with outside contractors.

• Ensures to stick to safety compliance standards and trains gardeners on the hotel’s garden maintenance plan and safer use of gardening tools.

Public Area Attendant 

• Public Area Attendants are responsible for maintaining every public area where the in-house and outside guests roam (front of the house) and the private area (staff areas, back of the house) of the property, including the lobby, common toilets, function spaces, offices, furniture, fixtures and just about any area and their moveable and immoveable assets place in there.

• They take orders from Public Area Supervisors for on-demand requirements and follow public area cleaning schedules as well. They stick to the Housekeeping Checklist and complete the task per the hotel standards.

• They are trained to handle the hotel’s Lost and Found procedure and report to the supervisors on such incidents.

• Public Area Attendants are also trained to be Room Attendants so the hotels can interchange them from time to time or on a scheduled basis. 

Housekeeping Room Attendant (Room Boy)

• As one of the most popular job titles in the hotel industry, they play a crucial role in maintaining the hotel’s primary products with the highest standards according to the cleaning standards set by the hotel or the hotel chain. They pay attention to details during the process and follow the standard checklists, including refilling guest amenities and minibar.

• Every attendant receives a Housekeeping Task Assignment sheet from the supervisor or assistant housekeeper containing the listing of the rooms that they need to complete cleaning.

• The Housekeeping Task Assignment sheet contains not only a rooming list, but also mentions any special instructions, attention, or a request from other departments for a specific guest room. 

• They strictly follow the Tasksheets and detailed Checklists to perform the task and are also responsible for refilling minibar items and taking note of guest consumption.

• Occasionally, they might perform simple maintenance-related tasks in rooms, such as changing bulbs, fixing loosened taps, etc.

• When the task for a room is completed, they change the room status from Dirty to Clean or Pickup as per the standards so that the Floor Supervisor knows that the room needs his inspection.

Laundry Washer / Ironer / Attendants

• Carefully sort items such as hotel staff uniforms, linens, and guest laundry by material and color as per the set standards, and wash, dry, and fold using high-end industrial equipment. And, prepare the laundered items for pickup and delivery with proper wrapping.

Linen Room Attendant

• Linen Room Attendants are responsible for receiving, recording, and segregating linen based on color, type, and potential to stain and send them to laundry for washing. 

• Then, when laundry finishes processing, they receive, run standard checks, and keep them on the shelves for pickup or delivery to the guests and other departments.

Tailor

• Responsible for minor repairs and alterations on guest garments, staff uniforms, And other linen used throughout the hotel.

Gardner

• Takes care of all gardening-related tasks assigned by the immediate supervisor, Head Gardner.

Hotel Housekeeping Management Software

There are housekeeping software solutions providers on the market to assist hotels with managing housekeeping operations. These are great alternatives for hotels using property management systems without the extended features to help support comprehensive housekeeping operations.

However, an advanced property management system (PMS) such as Opera has the required modules built-in to cover the housekeeping operations in detail.

Which Areas Can a Software System or Hotel Housekeeping Apps Help Simplify the Operations?

Housekeeping Task Assignment

An Executive Housekeeper or the assistant, if not the Floor Supervisor, assigns guest room cleaning tasks among the Room Attendants and prints a housekeeping task sheet containing a list of rooms for each attendant.

The workload is distributed equally among all the Room Attendants on duty on that date.

In a hotel, every room is not equal by size such as a suite room is bigger than a standard room. Similarly, every room doesn’t need the same amount of time to clean, even among the same room type; for example, a checked-out standard room takes more time to clean than a stay-over standard room, and likewise for every other room type.

To help this work distribution, they use a mechanism Housekeeping Credits, which is like the time it takes to complete a room cleaning. Let’s see it a bit deeper:

Room Number	Room Type	Room Status	Housekeeping Credits	Attendant
102	Standard	Stayover	1.0	Alan
104	Standard	Stayover	1.0	Alan
106	Standard	Stayover	1.0	Alan
108	Standard	Checkout	1.5	Alan
202	Standard	Checkout	1.5	Kumar
210	Suite	Checkout	3.0	Kumar

In the above example, both attendants, Alan and Kumar, have the same number of credits to handle even though Alan is handling more rooms than Kumar.

They list the rooms in the housekeeping task sheet by floors and sections, which includes adjacent and nearby rooms in the same sheet to speed up cleaning so that the attendant doesn’t have to move too far to clean his next room. 

Check out the Task Sheets in Oracle Opera

Housekeeping Inventory Management (Task, Linen, and amenities management.)

Some hotels maintain daily changing of bed sheets as standard. In contrast, others might go for an environmentally and economically friendly approach where they change the bed sheets every other day or a few days. Check below to see how software can help these eco-friendly hotels effectively manage their inventory.

These hotels have different task codes where the linen and other amenities are attached to the task codes. For example, where it takes 100 fresh bed sheets daily, it might be reduced to 50 bedsheets based on the hotel guests’ movements.

Obviously, it cuts operating costs to the hotel and reduces the workforce required to handle the operation. Likewise, the hotel can target other tasks and amenities as well.

To effectively manage such environments, hotels require software capable of accurately handling complex details.

Lost and Found

Items left behind, whether in the guest rooms or public areas, are kept in allocated areas in the housekeeping department. Traditional hotel systems, including Opera PMS, don’t provide a comprehensive module to handle Lost and Found items of the hotels. 

Inter-departmental Communication

The housekeeping team is in constant touch with other departments, especially the hotel’s Maintenance department for any repairs in the guest rooms, machinery, and other equipment. 

Likewise, they are in touch with the Front Office department for any guest needs, informing room discrepancies, placing a room in the priority queue for cleaning if a guest arrives earlier than the expected time, or any other. 

And, for Lost and Found handling of high-value items, some hotels’ have a policy that involves their Security department.

Having a mobile app that housekeeping staff can utilize to record a room repair, HK discrepancy, add room conditions, or handle guests’ requests and Lost & Found can improve the quality of the service. At the same time, it can reduce phone/mobile calls that are inefficient for logging and user-friendliness purposes.

They cannot be integrated with hotels’ PMS software, where every detail of guests is recorded. Any hotel housekeeping software or housekeeping app depends on getting up-to-date hotel guest data and forecasts.

And any communication among the colleagues within the department, considering, as said earlier in the post, housekeeping team members are always roaming around the property for supervision, overseeing, or cleaning tasks.

Housekeeping Room Status vs Front Office Room Status

Hotels must maintain room status between Housekeeping and Front Office the same for every room. Housekeeping’s status comes from physical checks while Front Office status gets updated as the guests check in and check out.

However, when there is a difference between these two, hotel management needs to interfere and investigate to resolve the root cause and avoid possible revenue losses.

Regular room statuses when no discrepancy is marked.

Room Status	Explanation
Vacant Dirty	Vacant Dirty rooms are those where the guest has departed on the same day. When the attendant has completed the cleaning task, the supervisor checks to see if everything is in perfect condition and changes the status to Vacant Inspected (through the telephone system by pressing set codes) so that the Front Office department can check in a new guest to the room.
Vacant Clean	When the room has been cleaned, the attendant makes the room status to be Vacant Clean to tell the Floor Attendant to check the condition and change the status to Vacant Inspected. Note: Not all the hotels use Inspected status; instead, they rely on Vacant Clean status to check in new guests. However, supervising and approving rooms is still performed by the team.
Vacant Inspected	As explained earlier.
Occupied Dirty	These are rooms where guests will continue their stay into the next day, but housekeeping is yet to clean.
Occupied Clean	These are occupied rooms and they have been cleaned by the housekeeping team.
Pickup (vacant)	A Pickup status informs the floor supervisor to inspect the room. If the room is clean as per the standards, the floor supervisor will change the status to ‘Inspected’ or request further cleaning.
Out of Service	This status indicates that the room is temporarily unavailable for checking in a guest due to a temporary defect in the room, which will be resolved on the same day.
Out of Order	This status indicates the rooms are not available permanently, which can be for the entire day or many days due to some serious renovation or repair being carried out in the rooms. Changing a room status to Out of Oder or simply OOO needs higher management approval as this status will bring down the physical room count of the hotel, impacting Average Room Rate (ARR), availability, and room inventory forecasts

Housekeeping / Front Office Room Discrepancy

Discrepancy Room Status	Explanation
Sleep	‘Sleeps’ discrepancy is recorded when, in PMS, the room is vacant though (the FO team has not checked in any guests), but there are guests in the room. It is as if, ‘someone is sleeping in the room without the FO agents’ knowledge.
Skip	This is the exact opposite situation of what was discussed in the ‘Sleep’ discrepancy.
Person Discrepancy	Indicates the difference between the number of people showing as occupied in the system and the actual number of guests recorded in the PMS booking.