Housekeeping daily operations: assignments, status flow, and lost & found

Housekeeping is run from one screen — the housekeeping board. Each room is a card showing its current status (color-coded), who's assigned, and any notes. The board is the supervisor's morning workspace; individual housekeepers update their own cards as they finish rooms. This article walks the typical day.

The six statuses

• Clean — housekeeper finished, ready for guest.
• Inspected — supervisor verified, ready for walk-ins.
• Dirty — needs cleaning. Auto-set on check-out.
• Occupied — guest is in the room. Auto-set on check-in.
• Room Service — being serviced mid-stay (towel change, turn-down).
• Out of Order — broken / under maintenance, not assignable.

Morning routine (supervisor)

1. Open Housekeeping. Filter to today's check-outs (those flipped to Dirty overnight) and stay-throughs that need a refresh.
2. Assign each room to a housekeeper from the assignedTo dropdown. Aim to cluster rooms by floor or wing — it cuts walking time more than you'd expect.
3. Note the day's special situations on each card: VIP arrivals, allergies, late check-out granted, owner stay. Housekeepers read notes before entering.
4. Brief the team. The board is the agenda — walk it together for 5 minutes if your team is large.

During the shift (housekeeper)

1. Open the room's card on a phone or tablet. Read the notes.
2. Clean. When done, tap status → Clean and save.
3. If something needs maintenance (broken faucet, blown bulb), set the room to Out of Order and add a note. Front desk will see it as unassignable.
4. If you find a guest item, write it in the notes immediately — date, description, where you found it. Don't trust memory. See the lost & found section.

Inspection (supervisor)

After a room is marked Clean, the supervisor walks it, then sets it to Inspected. Inspected rooms are the only ones the front desk should hand to a walk-in without a buffer — they've been seen by two pairs of eyes. For reservations with confirmed arrival times, Clean is enough as long as inspection happens before the guest arrives.

Lost & found

HotelBee doesn't have a separate lost-and-found module — the housekeeping notes field is the system of record. Discipline matters more than tooling here:

• Write every find immediately. "Black sunglasses, prescription, found in bathroom, 2026-05-02" — date + description + where.
• Bag the item with a tag listing the room number and find date. Keep a single L&F drawer at the front desk or housekeeping office.
• For high-value items (electronics, jewelry, ID, cash), also tag the guest profile of the reservation that just checked out. Easier to find them when the guest calls than scrolling through housekeeping notes.
• Set a retention policy (e.g. 30 days for low-value, 6 months for high-value), then dispose or donate. Document in the housekeeping note before disposing.

Out of Order rooms

Set Out of Order when something blocks the room from being sold — broken AC, plumbing issue, deep cleaning between long stays, renovation. The room disappears from front desk's assignable pool until you flip it back to Dirty/Clean. For longer-term blocks (a week or more), prefer the room block / out-of-order workflow on the calendar — it's reservation-aware and won't cause double-booking. The housekeeping Out of Order is for today/tomorrow.

End of day

• Walk the board. Every room should be Clean, Inspected, or Occupied — anything still Dirty after last check-in is a problem to handle now.
• Hand off Out of Order items to maintenance with a written note.
• Brief the night auditor on anything unusual — guest in room with broken lock, late check-out still pending, etc.