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I always leave a tip when i check out of my hotel room. I throw some cash on the bed for the housekeepers every time i stay at a hotel. The housekeepers are the least respected.
If it was a hotel where people were coming for vacation and staying for days cleaning a stay and making the bed should take no more than 15 minutes.
It's not just the time they spend cleaning the room, it's all the time they spend at work that has to be computed. So, if they have to gather their supply cart, gather towels and lines, get a room cleaning list and go from where their supply cart is located to the first room, all that time has to be calculated into the per room rate. During the day if they are assigned other cleaning things like vacuuming the corridor, that time also counts towards total time worked. At the end of the day, all the time they spend disposing of the trash, dirty linens, inventorying the supplies used and checking out is included in their work hours. If those additional duties eat up an hour or two, the per room rate must also cover those times to equal at least minimum wage. Tips are not calculated as it's not pay from the employer unless automatically added to the guest bill.
As someone noted above, paying a per room rate is known as paying on a piece rate basis. Under federal law (The Fair Labor Standards Act) nothing is illegal about paying on a piece rate basis. I doubt any state prohibits piece rate pay, but a State could; so State and local wage and hour laws would have to be checked. In any event, the piece rate has to be high enough that when the total amount earned is divided by the hours worked, the hourly rate is equal to or greater than the state's minimum wage.
I worked as a maid at a hotel when I was in high school. It was a 5 diamond resort. We typically got 6-10 rooms. Not all rooms are the same size. We had to mark times for everything on or work papers. What time we got in the room, what time we left, total time in there, how long it took to stock our cart, if we couldn't get into any rooms how long we cleaned the hallways etc. They needed to know we were busy every minute of the day. It was very hard work. Some rooms could take an hour to clean, some maybe 30 minutes but you never knew. We were paid hourly, about 2 dollars over min wage at the time. Tips are not the norm. Even is a nice fancy resort. Also tips are spilt for how many days you are there and who cleaned that room. Tips are suppose to be turned in by who finds it, but many just pocket it for themselves. So if you stayed for a week and someone cleaned the room just the day of check out and pockets the tip for herself the other 6 days you were there those maid got nothing.
I left a tip each day that I stayed at a hotel rather than one larger one at the end. I kind of thought that one housekeeper may pocket the whole pot rather than split with the others. I guess I was right.
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