Gratuity for housekeeping

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My name is Sherri and am new to this site. I stumbled upon this website and am grateful that I did. Most likely the beginning of many, I have a question.
I manage a B&B with 12 rooms. I have a total of 3 housekeepers that all work part-time, sometimes working together as a team. We do not have a formal gratuity system, but am thinking of placing a gratuity envelope in each room at the request of my staff.
I am a little stumped on how I should approach this.
At this point, the housekeeper that happens to clean the room the morning of check-out gets the tip; even if it was another housekeeper that refreshed the room (for resv. of more than 1 night) for the duration of guests' stay.
Although the housekeepers don't seem to have an issue with this routine, sometimes seem a little unfair to me.
I am looking for advice on tip policies for housekeepers and for ideas on what to print on the gratuity envelopes.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks - Sherri
 
Welcome to the forum.
I stayed at a cabin over this weekend and on the table was a small printed index card stating the cabin had been cleaned and inspected by....and two initials were there. It was bright yellow and it laid around for two days and of course I knew it was a reminder that someone had cleaned all of this for me and made it nice and comfy. End of our stay we left the gratuity.
A reminder is a great thing. Not pushy, just right!
 
Lots of options here...pool the tips but then you have to trust that everyone will do that. Let the housekeeper that does the final clean get the tip and hope that it all works out evenly over the course of the year. If you think there may be some 'filching' going on in that one person will go into rooms and take all the tips (as happens at hotels), then don't bother as it will just be more aggro than you want to deal with. Another option is to get a line added to your check-out statement that has 'tips' on it and divvy the tips up based on hours worked.
Many, many people know that in hotels it's not the same person everyday so they leave a couple of dollars everyday.
How to word your tip note...it should be gracious, welcoming the guest and thanking them for staying. It should not be- Here's the tip envelope, you know what to do. I actually hate pre-printed tip envelopes that lots of places use. Let your guests know you thought about this and idn't just order a thousand envelopes, ready to go.
Let the guests know that tipping is appreciated but no one should feel obligated.
 
We have 9 rooms and 6 housekeepers. We put a "Housekeeping" envelope with a pretty graphic on it in each room that says "We hope you have a wonderful stay! Your housekeepers Janie, Susie & Lisa. Our gals get good tips pretty regularly. They just take what comes in each day...they figure it all comes out in the wash over time.
 
Ours say the name of the inn at the top with the terms:
Thank you from the Chamber Care Team at the bottom.
 
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