Premier Inn cleaning

[Theyreeatingthedogs]

We are staying in a PI for a few days and their policy, I think since COVID, is to not clean rooms and change towels unless requested. We were happy with this and only do so when we feel it is needed as it does impact the environment. However, I have been thinking about whether this affects the pay of the cleaners. Does anyone know if the cleaners get paid the same whether they have to clean the room or not? I'd hate to think that our decision means that they don't get paid and PI pockets the money.

I can’t imagine so, most people only tend to stay the one night at premiere inns so I think they’d still be plenty to do

My friends Dd works there and they get paid for what they do so if everyone was staying for 2 nights and no one asked for the room to be serviced she’d get no hours. For this reason I always ask on reception for my room to be serviced.

I can't speak for every Premier Inn, but the one my friend works at, the housekeepers have guaranteed hours. If they work more than that, then they can get extra (although it's not encouraged, sometimes it's necessary), but they always get their guaranteed hours - if it's quiet they do some deep cleaning.

Just checked out a few housekeeper job adverts for premier Inn - all the ones I looked at say they don't do zero hour contracts, and say it is guaranteed hours.

no, they eong get paid. PI are bloody awful gof paying their cleaning team - they have an arbitrary amount of time a room should take and if you went over the time you weren’t paid - so almost like piece work.

They get guaranteed weekly hours at PI.
the systems are advanced enough to forecast how many people will get their room cleaned, and know how many departures etc so rotas are done well in advance. There are also public areas to be cleaned etc on the quieter days.

They don’t do zero hours but expect you to be fully flexible. If you have a 16 hour contract they could spread that over 7 days if they needed to because they are timed on how long they have to clean a room so that’s how their hours are worked out. Look at the reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor and you can see they are understaffed and overworked which is typical for the industry.

Which would suggest that op would be doing absolutely the right thing by not asking for their room to be serviced.

The more people that ask for the room to be serviced means more hours in one day so they don’t have to work across the whole week to get their contacted hours.

Legally Premier Inn could only insist on people working 7 days a week if they has at least 24 hours off between shifts. So, say, 6am to 10am, then a 10am start the next day. They certainly don't do that at my friend's job. She gets the same two days off per week and works the same shift pattern every week (which does include every weekend), but sometimes chooses to go in on days off to cover sickness.

Oh, and op's one room isn't going to make them change their staffing plans - but it will help with the understaffing and overwork issue raised.

I would presume thetr is a plan and not at the mercy of guests not having them pick up towels or not

It takes a matter of a few minutes to "service" a room while guests are in it, and not all that much longer when they've checked out, given how all the fixtures and fittings in these places have been designed to allow maximum efficiency when cleaning.

The whole "thing" about Covid is of course that across every aspect of life, everyone, every company, every service provider was forced to strip everything right back and now a great many of them have realised just how low they can go in terms of services levels without customers walking away. I'd like to think that for every five minutes saved by not servicing a room, five minutes was added to a schedule that allowed for more cleaning of the communal areas. Sadly, knowing the cleaning industry as well as I do, and as PPs have said, the housekeeping teams are likely to chasing their tails as it is, due to not enough staff, so every room they don't have to service is one less stress as opposed to a drop in their pay.

Anyway, the cost of cleaning your room every day should be factored into the room rates, whether the work is done or not...I cannot for one second believe the likes of Premier Inn do not cost their rooms correctly, and seeing how massively the retail price of rooms can vary from day to day, there's plenty of wiggle room.

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