For systematic management of the daily routine of the housekeeping department, the Housekeeping shifts are divided into a three main categories.
Morning shift: 7.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Afternoon shift: 2.00 p.m. to 11.00 p.m
Night Shift: 11.00 p.m. to 8.00 a.m.
I will tell you step by step each Shift details and work performed in this shift
1) Morning Shift in Housekeeping
The morning shift employees punch in their cards and proceed to the locker room to change into their uniforms.
Normally, in thia shift the soiled uniforms would have been exchanged on a one-for-one basis the previous evening.
Depending on the individual hotel the uniformed employees then report to the control desk at the allotted time for the morning shift, which may vary between 7.00 a.m. to 8.00 a.m.,
Following activities perform in Morning Shift
1. Briefing
It the first step in Morning shift in Housekeeping in this shift, The deputy housekeeper or the executive housekeeper, being the managerial staff, will conduct the briefing session for all employees in Housekeeping at the beginning of a work shift.
The following activities may be discuss in the a briefing session of 10 minutes in morning shift
- About any VIP in the hotel.
- Policies and new procedures to be followed by the staff.
- Job allocations to each employees.
- Checking of grooming standards and personal hygiene of the employees.
- Appreciation for work well done on earlier shifts.
- Rectification required (on the basis of observation).
- Banquets or other events to be held in the hotel.
2) Room Assignments
After briefing, the floor supervisors hand over the room assignment sheets to the GRAs.
Each room assignment sheet indicates the rooms that the concerned GRA has to service, giving their status as indicated in the daily work report.
3) Handover of Keys
Once the GRAs have received their room assignment sheets, they are handed the floor master keys for their particular floors by the deputy housekeeper.
The key cabinet should be kept locked at all times. Each GRA has to sign for the keys received in a key control sheet.
4) Readying the cart
The GRAs, armed with master keys, then proceed to the floor pantries on their individual floors. Where they make additions and alterations to their room attendant’s cart according to the room occupancy.
5) Room Status Check
At this stage, one of the most important morning-shift activities to be undertaken by the housekeeping staff is the physical check of the room status.
Hotels have varying procedures regarding who carries out this activity.
The two most common are explained here:
- All-rooms check
- Vacant-only check
a) All-rooms check
The GRAs carry out a physical check of the room status and enter it in their room assignment Sheets.
A consolidated report is then generated from the information received at the control desk by the Control desk by the control desk supervisor.
This is called the housekeeping room status report.
b) Vacant-only check
In many properties, to avoid disturbing guests just to check the status of the room, a discrepancy report is generated by the inspection of only ’on change’ and ‘vacant and ready’ rooms.
In fact under this system, to save time, the GRAs do not approach any guestrooms in the morning till they are ready to clean that room.
6) Room Service & Inspection
Having collected their carts and supplies, the GRAs now proceed to service the guestrooms.
As on-change rooms, normally the first priority, are cleaned by the GRAs, the floor supervisors inspect the rooms and inform the control desk supervisor to release these rooms to the front office for sale.
7) Clean-up, reporting, and handover
The GRAs now send all the soiled linen (collected in room) down the linen chute. For washing or the housemen take the soiled linen to the laundry on a linen trolley.
Around 3.30 p.m., the GRAs re-stock the carts for evening guestroom servicing.
After supervisor may take the counting of the linen usually in hotel, usually this count take supervisor once a week.
8) Debriefing and going off duty
This is the last session of the Morning shift in Housekeeping the session is similar and complementary to the briefing at the start of a shift, may include
The following activities includes in this stage
- Discussing problems faced by any staff member.
- Sharing experiences and inviting ideas or practical solutions to tackle any particular common problem.
- Handover of any incomplete work to the staff on the next shift.
- Checking the next day’s duty roster.
2) Afternoon/Evening Shift in Housekeeping
The afternoon shift (also called evening-shift ) GRAs update the room status again by undertaking a physical check of guestrooms by 4.30 p.m. updating the room status again at this time is important, since many changes may have taken place due to guest. check-ins and check-outs after 3.00 p.m.
The ‘check-out’ will now be ready rooms.
The afternoon GRAs now clean the ‘late service request’ rooms and ‘brush up’ “(BUP) rooms that had been serviced earlier in the day when they were occupied, but are now vacated.
The evening GRAs re-stock the room attendants’ cart in the floor pantries for the next day’s work and go off duty.
3) Night Shift in Housekeeping
The Night supervisor takes over from the supervisors of the previous shift.
Night GRA checks the room attendants’ carts, washes the drinking glasses, and keeps them ready for the morning crew to place on the cart.
In night supervisor is responsible for filing the following documents:
- Night report to housekeeping(collected from the front desk to open the house in the morning).
- Originals and copies of all the daily work reports.
- All the section work sheets.
- Copies of the housekeeping status report.
- Completed key control sheets.
- Night supervisor’s report on evening activities.
- Early in the morning, the night supervisor collects the night report and the arrivals/departures list
- From the front-desk to open the house.
- Maid’s Report
- Each room attendant prepares a report on the status of rooms allotted to him/her.