Crafting the perfect housekeeping job description for your hotel takes time if you want to attract housekeepers that will stay. If you’re looking to hire a housekeeper (or more than one!) at your hotel, here’s what you should include in the housekeeping job description to attract the best talent in the industry.
What is a housekeeper?
While the position is called a housekeeper, it’s a bit of a misnomer. In the hospitality industry, a housekeeper is responsible for the cleaning of hotel rooms and common areas at the facility. They’re held accountable to brand standards to ensure tidy and sanitary amenities are available to guests. Sometimes, this position is referred to as a maid.
Want to jumpstart your search for housekeeping talent? Download your housekeeping job description by filling out the form below, add in your hotel’s details, and post — it’s that simple!
What expectations can you include in a housekeeping job description?
To answer this question, you need to look at your hotel’s standard cleaning procedures. The expectations laid out in your housekeeping job description should reflect your company’s culture and overall commitment to guest satisfaction. You can pepper these descriptions throughout your housekeeping job description to give potential applicants a comprehensive picture of your hotel’s work environment. For example, you could include personality traits that aren’t necessarily measurable like, “friendly,” in your housekeeper job summary while adding physical demands like “able to lift 20 pounds” or “can stand for an extended period of time” in the requirements section. You can find out more about a candidate’s personality by carefully selecting interview questions to ask during the hiring process to double check.
What are the responsibilities of a housekeeper?
A housekeeper’s primary goal is to turnover rooms as efficiently as possible while maintaining hotel brand standards. Some responsibilities may differ from hotel to hotel, like who’s in charge of laundering dirty sheets and towels, but there is a great deal of overlap in these duties. When drafting your housekeeping job description, add the requirements that you know your brand expects — but don’t go overboard with the details! Instead of listing every miniscule responsibility (i.e., clean smudges off elevator doors, wipe down mirrors in lobby, etc.) add a line to your job description that says something along the lines of “Employee may be required to complete or be responsible for additional job duties as assigned” so there’s no confusion.
How can I make a housekeeping job description more appealing?
Making a housekeeping job description appealing is the keystone to recruiting and hiring the talent you need to maximize guest occupancy and satisfaction at your hotel. In order to do this, however, you need to put thought into what these workers’ potential careers could look like at your hotel. Paint them a picture of what their future would look like with you via career pathways. In our 2023 State of Hospitality Report, 37% of hospitality job seekers indicated that they would accept a lower paying offer if career growth opportunities were available — the second leading reason why they’d accept a position with a lower wage.
If you can swing it, oftentimes a sign-on bonus is enough to influence candidates to accept your offer, especially if you’re hiring an employee that’s newer to the workforce. This isn’t a counterintuitive strategy, to be clear: what you’re paying upfront for a housekeeper is far, far less than what you would if you were to hike the overall wage to attract candidates.
Other than that, be sure to let your existing housekeeping staff know how much you appreciate all of the hard work they put in. Recognizing your housekeepers can help improve morale and decrease turnover, further saving you money in the long run. As a bonus, good people know good people: and your housekeepers are likely to refer their friends if they feel they’re treated well.
Ready to write your housekeeping job description?
When drafting your job description, keep it simple by following this order of sections and include the benefits that your hotel offers employees. If you do that, you’ll be well on your way to hiring a housekeeper that will stay at your hotel.
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