The Public Areas Standard

Read the day’s sheet at 05:45: events and their break times, group arrivals and departures, VIPs arriving through the lobby, areas closed for works. Busy hours get extra rounds on the sheet.

Stock the caddy: colour-coded cloths (red for toilets and urinals only), glass cleaner, neutral cleaner, disinfectant, dustpan and brush, gloves, spare soap, paper and liners, and two wet-floor signs.

Finish the heavy work before 07:00, while the lobby is empty: machine the hard floors, vacuum rugs and seating, shake or change the entrance mats, clean the inside glass of the doors, polish brass and steel.

Set the lobby before the first guest: furniture on its marks, cushions plumped, newspapers in the rack, flowers with no dead heads and clear water, every bin empty and every light on as set.

Check yourself against The Presence Standard before you step into the lobby: uniform, name badge, clean hands, and the morning’s arrivals in mind.

When a guest comes towards you, stop work, step aside, greet them and let them pass. A guest never has to walk round a mop, a machine or a caddy.

“Good morning. Please, go ahead.”

Answer a guest’s question if you can in one sentence. For anything else, walk them to the front desk or the concierge rather than pointing the way.

“The spa is on the lower ground floor. Let me show you to the lift.”

Keep your equipment out of the walking line: the caddy beside you, never in a doorway, at a lift door or on a stair; cables run along the wall; nothing left unattended, even for a minute.

Work quietly between 07:00 and 23:00: no floor machines in the lobby, at restaurant entrances or near meeting rooms while guests are there. Use a cordless vacuum, a dust mop or a dustpan.

Walk the lobby every 30 minutes in the same loop: entrance, seating, front desk side, lifts, washroom corridor. Pick up anything on the floor, clear used cups and glasses, empty bins over half full.

Wipe prints from the entrance glass, door handles and push plates every hour, and more often in rain or at busy arrival times. Check the entrance mat is dry, flat and free of sand at the edges.

Reset each seating area as soon as the guests leave it: cushions plumped, tables wiped dry, newspapers and magazines back in the rack in order, chairs on their marks.

Check flowers and plants on every round: no dead leaves or petals, no water on the table, vase water clear. Tell the florist by noon about anything you cannot put right.

Clear what others leave: room service trays to in-room dining as The Tray Collection Standard sets out, luggage trolleys to the bell desk, found items as The Lost Property Standard sets out.

Before you go in, knock, announce yourself and wait for an answer. Put the cleaning sign at the door and clean one section at a time, so the washroom stays open. Follow the hotel’s rule on who cleans which washroom.

“Housekeeping. Is anyone inside?”

Every 30 minutes: wipe basins, taps and counters dry, clean and dry the mirrors, check every toilet and urinal, pick up paper from the floor and empty any bin over half full.

Refill soap, hand cream, hand towels and toilet paper so nothing is below a quarter, and fold the end of each toilet roll. Replace used cloth towels with clean ones, folded the same way.

Clean toilets and urinals with the red cloth and the toilet brush only: seat, hinges, base and the wall behind. Check the floor round each base and behind each door with a torch for hair and splashes.

Breathe in as you leave: the washroom should smell of nothing. If it doesn’t, find the cause (a drain, a bin, a cubicle) and fix it or call engineering. Never cover a smell with spray.

Sign the sheet inside the door, or scan the code, with the time and your initials. The supervisor checks the signatures against the room on every walk of the building.

Every hour in each lift car: wipe the buttons and handrails, check the mirror and steel from the side, sweep or vacuum the floor and straighten the mat. Clean the call buttons and door tracks on every floor once a day.

Vacuum every guest corridor once a day, between 10:00 and 17:00, end to end with the crevice tool along the skirting, never outside a DND room. Spot-clean marks on walls, doors and frames.

Once a day on each floor, check the ice and vending areas, service doors and lift lobbies: floor clean, nothing stored outside a service room, ice machine area dry, bins emptied.

Sweep the stairs and landings guests use and wipe the handrails twice a day. Fire exits are never blocked by a caddy, a trolley or stock, not even for a minute.

Clear a spill or breakage within 5 minutes of seeing it or hearing about it. Put the wet-floor sign out first, pick up broken glass with gloves and a dustpan, then mop and dry the floor.

If a guest has spilled something, clear it quickly and without fuss, and offer to replace what was lost. Say nothing more about it.

“Let me take care of that for you. May I ask the bar to bring you another?”

In rain or blown sand, lay extra mats and a wet-floor sign at the entrance, mop the entrance every 15 minutes while it lasts, and wipe the wheels of the luggage trolleys.

For vomit, blood or other body fluids: close off the area with signs, put on gloves and an apron, use the spill kit and disinfectant, log it, and tell the supervisor.

Report what you cannot fix to engineering within 10 minutes: a dead bulb, a dripping tap, a cracked tile, a lift fault. Write it on the sheet with the time you reported it.

At 18:00 set the lobby for the evening: seating reset, flowers checked, washrooms restocked in full before the dinner hour, and the entrance glass cleaned once more.

From 23:00 the night attendant checks the washrooms and lifts every hour, and does the work too noisy for the day as the night list says: scrubbing, carpet extraction, polishing.

Hand over at the end of every shift on the sheet: rounds done, rounds missed and why, faults reported and still open, areas closed, stock running low. The next attendant starts from it.