Here's my detailed answer that I listed out when I was hiring my last housekeeper a couple months ago:
We have 9 rooms - 4 are regular size queens, 2 are large rooms with king beds and steam showers with glass doors and 3 are huge rooms with in-room jacuzzis, separate large bath and king bed. We have one housekeeper who works 3 or 4 days, 6-8 hours each day. In the busy season, we have someone on 6-8 hours everyday but Tuesday. Our housekeepers are trained for a couple days with my husband and from that point forward they are out there doing their work - we don't do it for them or hold their hand. Of course, we're here to answer questions or deal with issues that arise and until we can trust their work we check every room when they are done.
Upon arrival at 10am, they help clear the dining room of dishes and take to the kitchen. If they don't have a busy day, then they do all of the dishes in our commercial dishwasher and clean the kitchen counters. If they have a busy day, then we do the dishes and they head out with their list of rooms. We find that it takes them about 15 minutes to touchup a room (make bed, empty trash/recycle, vacuum if carpet is messy). For those rooms with jacuzzi, it takes longer if the tub needs to be filled and rinsed. The small queen rooms take them about 30 minutes to do a full clean - strip and make bed, clean bathroom, setup towels/amenities, dust TV and nightstands and vacuum. We have a vacuum on all 3 floors. The king steam shower rooms take about 45 minutes as they have to clean the shower doors in addition to above. The jacuzzi rooms take about an hour - when they first go in they fill the tub and run the system clean through it while stripping bed, etc. It runs for about 10 minutes and then is dumped, the tub cleaned and rinsed thoroughly. They get this done in about an hour. But again, they are trained to have two things going at once - the tub is cleaning while the bed is being stripped and remade. Unless there was something beyond the ordinary in a guest room, they handle it including getting out stains from our Comphy sheets.
When they strip the first two rooms, they put those sheets into the laundry to get them going. When they are back down in the laundry room with the sheets from another 2 rooms, they can switch them over and start a new load. Unless they were switching over all rooms, they can get the rooms touched up and flipped, some laundry going, vacuum the entryway, great room and dining room and reset the dining room for the next morning. They are paid well and get all tips.
This week we were closed until today. So she had Sunday off for Easter and on Monday she cleaned rooms from the weekend and did laundry. Yesterday morning she finished laundry and then removed furniture from two rooms and deep cleaned the carpets. She'll put those rooms back together again tomorrow after she touches up the one room for tonight. When we are slow, we give her projects to give her at least 24 hours a week. Next week she'll be outside with me if it's warm weeding.
I have no problem sitting in my office reading the forum, paying bills, finding new recipes or doing whatever while she is in the Lodge working. That's her job. And if my kids are at school and I feel like watching my favorite cooking program, then I'm off to my bedroom to have an hour to myself. My day starts at 6:30 (3 1/2 hours before hers) and since we do checkins up to 9pm, my day doesn't stop until long after she's gone home.
I would ask your husband to think about all of those hotels out there - the general manager doesn't do rooms, the housekeepers do while the GM is busy building the brand, working with the marketing folks, etc. to make money which is our job. Hope the detail isn't too much, but I wanted to really answer your question on what we expect from our housekeepers.
Carol.
