A hotel room attendant cleans and resets guest rooms between stays, working through a section of checkouts and stayovers from a stocked cart. They make beds, clean bathrooms, restock amenities, mark each room finished on the room phone or app, and report anything broken, unsafe or left behind.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Room Attendants clean and reset guest rooms so they're ready for the next guest. You'll clean checkout and stayover rooms to the hotel's checklist, restock linens and amenities, update room status, and report anything broken, unsafe or left behind. Some attendants also work evening turndown service.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Clean checkout rooms top to bottom: strip and make beds, clean the bathroom, dust, vacuum and restock.
Service stayover rooms based on the guest's choice and your policy, and respect Do Not Disturb signs.
Update room status as soon as each room is done, using [your housekeeping app or the room phone code].
Report broken items, leaks, stains and signs of pests to your supervisor so the room can be fixed before it's sold.
Turn in everything guests leave behind to lost and found, with the room number and date.
Keep your master key on you, and never open a room for anyone; send guests to the front desk.
Use chemicals as labeled, and handle needles, blood or broken glass with the hotel's safety procedure.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Pick up your room assignment and master key at the morning lineup and sign the key log.
Clean your section, starting with rooms marked priority for early arrivals.
Check under beds, in drawers and in the safe for items left behind.
Restock your cart from the linen room and send soiled linen down with the houseperson.
Return your key and report any unfinished rooms to your supervisor before you leave.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Rooms passing inspection the first time: [your target].
Rooms cleaned per shift: [your target].
Guest cleanliness score for your rooms: [your target].
Priority rooms finished by the requested time: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
Willing to learn the hotel's cleaning checklist and follow it in every room.
Notices details, such as hair in a tub or a stain on a pillowcase.
Follows safety rules for chemicals, sharps and room entry every time.
Trustworthy around guests' belongings.
6. Preferred Experience
Housekeeping experience at a hotel, resort, hospital or cleaning company.
Experience with turndown service or suites.
Has updated room status in a housekeeping app or with room phone codes.
7. Physical Requirements
Clean [12 to 16] rooms a shift, which means bending, kneeling, reaching and pushing a cart most of the day.
Lift mattress corners to tuck sheets, and lift linen bags and supplies up to [30] pounds.
Work on your feet for the full shift.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Day shift, usually [8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.], including weekends and holidays.
Works with cleaning chemicals; gloves and other protective gear provided.
Evening turndown shifts: [hours, if your hotel offers turndown].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new room attendant gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
House cleaners and office cleaners follow a checklist too. A hotel room attendant cleans against the clock, in rooms where strangers slept last night, with a supervisor inspecting the work after each one.
Checkouts and stayovers are different jobs
A checkout gets the full reset: strip the bed, clean the bathroom top to bottom, and check drawers, the closet, under the bed and the safe. A stayover gets the service the guest chose under your policy, working around their things. Rooms flagged for early arrivals go first, and a room with its Do Not Disturb sign out stays closed until your policy says otherwise.
Working alone behind a guest room door
Attendants spend most of the day alone in rooms a guest can walk back into. In Washington, a hotel or motel housekeeper who works alone must get a panic button from the employer. It has to be simple to set off, with no password, and must bring help and show where the attendant is. Housekeepers also get training on using it and on preventing sexual harassment and assault. Elsewhere, find out what your state and city ask of you. Source: Revised Code of Washington 49.60.515: Hotel, motel, retail and security employers, isolated employees.
Spotting bed bugs while stripping beds
Stripping a bed puts the attendant right where bed bugs hide. EPA says to look for rusty or reddish stains, dark spots the size of a dot, tiny pale eggs or shed skins, and live bugs. Check the mattress seams, piping and tags, and cracks in the headboard. Carpet beetles are easy to mistake for bed bugs, so attendants describe what they found to the supervisor and leave the room untouched. Source: U.S. EPA: How to find bed bugs.
California's injury training for housekeepers
California hotels must train housekeepers in a language they understand. Training covers the signs and causes of muscle and joint injuries, safe ways to move, and practice on the very tools and equipment they'll use. It comes at hire, with new equipment or tasks, and every year. Housekeepers must be able to report hazards and injuries without fear of payback. Source: Cal/OSHA Title 8, section 3345: Hotel housekeeping musculoskeletal injury prevention.
Trusted with guests' belongings
Attendants clean around wallets on nightstands, laptops on desks and jewelry by the sink every day. Good ones move only what they must, turn in every found item, and never open a door for someone who says the room is theirs. That person goes to the front desk, which can check ID.
How much hotel room attendants make
The closest BLS group for hotel room attendants is maids and housekeeping cleaners. Maids and housekeeping cleaners who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $16.79 an hour ($34,920 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $35,510 median for maids and housekeeping cleaners in all industries. About 415,160 of the 860,670 maids and housekeeping cleaners in that survey work for hotels and resorts.
Hourly. Hotels usually set a room count for each shift and weigh checkouts, stayovers and suites differently. Some pay extra for rooms beyond that count.
Hotels and resorts
$34,920$34,920 median Middle half $29,430–$39,050 10th–90th $26,930–$49,510
All industries
$35,510$35,510 median Middle half $30,350–$39,590 10th–90th $27,640–$48,570
$20k$30k$40k$50k$60k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Hotels and resorts
$26,930
$29,430
$34,920
$39,050
$49,510
All industries
$27,640
$30,350
$35,510
$39,590
$48,570
BLS groups hotels, resorts and motels as traveler accommodation. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Keeps the same standard in the last room of the shift as in the first
Notices small things: a hair in the tub, a stain on a pillowcase, a charger left in the wall
Works a section in order and asks for help before falling behind
Leaves guests' belongings exactly as they were
Follows the rules for chemicals, needles and room entry every time
Teach these on the job
Your cleaning order and bed-making standard
Room status codes on the room phone or housekeeping app
Which chemical goes on which surface, and where the Safety Data Sheets are
How to handle needles, blood or broken glass under your procedure
Turndown service, if your hotel offers it
Attendants work from a cart stocked with linen, amenities and a caddy of labeled chemicals, plus a vacuum and a master key. They update room status in a housekeeping app or by dialing a code from the room phone. Say in the posting if the job includes suites, villas or turndown, since each adds steps.
Hotel room attendant interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Your room mix should set the targets. A section of suites or checkouts takes longer than a section of stayovers, so compare attendants who had similar sections.
Rooms passing inspection the first time
Rooms that passed with nothing sent back, as a share of rooms inspected, per attendant per week, from the supervisor's records. Read the reasons for fails and retrain on the most common one.
Rooms cleaned per shift
Rooms finished each shift, from the assignment sheet or app, weighted for checkouts, stayovers and suites so a heavy section isn't scored like a light one.
Guest cleanliness score for your rooms
Cleanliness scores from guest surveys, plus review comments, matched to the rooms each attendant cleaned, by month. Use it to coach, since one unhappy guest can swing a small sample.
Priority rooms finished by the requested time
Priority rooms released by the time the front desk asked for them, from app time stamps or the supervisor's log. Flag delays from late checkouts separately, since those aren't the attendant's doing.
Career path
Room attendantCleans a section of checkouts and stayovers each shift.
Turndown or VIP attendantHandles suites, VIP setups and evening service, where details count most.
No. Willingness to learn the checklist is what the template requires, not past hotel work. Experience at a hospital, a cleaning company or another hotel shortens training. New attendants usually shadow a trainer for their first shifts, then take a smaller section until their rooms pass inspection week after week.
How much does a hotel room attendant make?
Maids and housekeeping cleaners who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $16.79 an hour ($34,920 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $29,430 and $39,050 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Who keeps the cash a guest leaves for housekeeping?
Your staff, never the hotel. Federal law forbids a hotel to keep any share of its workers' tips. Managers and supervisors are shut out of any tip pool, whether or not the hotel takes a tip credit. A hotel that pays every worker the federal minimum wage or more in cash can make attendants pool tips with other hourly staff, and where state law protects workers more, it wins. Put your rule in writing. For example, cash left with a note goes to the attendant who cleaned the room, and cash in a forgotten wallet goes to lost and found.
What is turndown service?
An evening visit to occupied rooms. The attendant tidies up, empties trash, swaps used towels, turns back the bed, closes the drapes and often leaves a small amenity. Turndown shifts run into the evening, and some attendants work only those, so it can be a posting of its own.
How many rooms should a room attendant clean in a shift?
The number in the template's brackets is a placeholder. Set yours from room size, suites, checkouts versus stayovers, and how far the cart travels between rooms. If good attendants can't finish a section without skipping steps, the quota is the problem. Recheck it when you add amenities or change the stayover policy.
