The 14-Minute Room and the 92% Occupancy Night
A 320-room select-service hotel is forecast at 92% occupancy tonight (294 rooms sold) with 41 checkouts and 38 early-arrival requests. The executive housekeeper schedules 22 room attendants at 8.0 credits each against a 14.5-credit-per-shift standard; two attendants called out at 6:40 a.m. and cannot be replaced. Standard room time is 28 minutes; the property's average is 31 minutes because of new bedding and a bathroom-grout project on floors 4 and 5 (60 rooms affected, adding roughly 6 minutes each). Check-in begins at 3:00 p.m. and the front office wants all rooms released by 4:00 p.m. The GM has already sold two rooms on floors 4-5 for 1:00 p.m. early arrival.
1. Calculate whether the remaining staff can release all 294 rooms by 4:00 p.m. Show your arithmetic and state the gap in room-minutes or rooms.
Read the worked answer
Capacity. 20 attendants x 8.0 hrs = 160 attendant-hours = 9,600 room-minutes.
Demand. 294 rooms to service. Baseline 31 min/room = 9,114 min. Plus grout-project premium: 60 rooms x 6 min = 360 min. Total = 9,474 room-minutes.
Verdict. 9,600 available vs. 9,474 required leaves only 126 minutes of slack (about 4 rooms' worth) - a 1.3% buffer. That is not a plan; it is a hope. Any single re-clean, late checkout, or supply run wipes it out, and the 1:00 p.m. early arrivals sit inside the slowest rooms.
Gap framing. The honest answer is not 'yes, barely' - it is 'technically, with zero tolerance for variance.' Since real operations carry 10-15% variance, the practical shortfall is roughly 1,000-1,400 room-minutes, or 30-45 rooms that will miss 4:00 p.m.
2. The GM's two 1:00 p.m. early-arrival rooms are on the grout floors. What sequence and staffing moves do you make in the first hour to protect them without blowing the 4:00 p.m. release?
Read the worked answer
Sequence first, then people. Sequence is free; labor is not.
- Front-load the two sold rooms. Assign them to the fastest two attendants (not the two newest) and have the housekeeping supervisor personally pre-stage linen, amenities, and the grout-area supplies on a cart at 7:30 a.m. so no attendant loses time hunting.
- Pull the grout floors out of the general board. Dedicate a 2-person 'project team' to floors 4-5 starting at 8:00 a.m., working top-down, so the 6-minute premium is paid by specialists who build rhythm rather than by 20 attendants paying it 60 times.
- Convert departures to stayovers where legal. Of 41 checkouts, screen for guests with late flights; offer a 2:00 p.m. late checkout to any guest who will accept it, which removes a full 31-minute clean from the critical path.
- Stagger the board by arrival pattern. Release the 38 early-arrival blocks first (they are the ones front desk will actually hand out), then the standard board.
What I will not do: pull the two project attendants back into the general board mid-morning. That trades a known 360-minute cost for a random one.
3. By 11:00 a.m., 12 rooms on floor 3 are still dirty and the supervisor reports attendants are averaging 34 minutes per room. What control action do you take, and what do you tell the front office?
Read the worked answer
Diagnose before you redeploy. 34 min against a 31-min average is a 10% slip - either the floor 3 board is heavy (checkouts, stayovers with requests) or the crew is demoralized by the two callouts. Ask the supervisor one question: 'How many of the 12 are checkouts?' If most are checkouts, the slip is structural and will self-correct. If most are stayovers, something is wrong with the assignment or the supplies.
Control action. Move the two project-team attendants onto floor 3 for 90 minutes only, then return them. Reassign the slowest attendant to a block of stayover 'light-touch' rooms (15 min) to rebuild pace and confidence. Verify linen par - a mid-shift linen shortage masquerades as slowness.
What I tell the front office. The truth, with a number: 'Rooms on floors 1-2 and 6-8 will be fully released by 3:00. Floor 3 will release in waves starting 2:30, and I will hold 8 rooms on floor 3 for 4:30. If you have arrivals before 3:00, place them on floors 1-2.' Give them the wave schedule, not a promise. Front desk can sell around a known constraint; it cannot sell around a surprise.