At six on a Saturday evening, a banquet of three hundred is seating while the lobby fills with check-ins. A new steward is asked by a guest where the cloakroom is. He has never seen the property plan. That moment shows why the first week should be a plan, not a loose "follow Ravi".
Three rules that come before everything else
- Master and pass keys: who carries them, how they are signed out and what to do if one is lost. A single lost key can mean changing a floor of locks.
- Fire and evacuation: the assembly point, the nearest exit from the joiner's own work area, the extinguisher type and the fire alarm panel location.
- Guest privacy: never give a room number to a caller, never open a door for a person without a key card check, never discuss a guest in the lift.
The duty manager or the security head covers these three on day one, in person, with the joiner walking the route. Reading a rule book is not enough.
JOINER ______________ DEPARTMENT ______________ JOIN DATE ______
BUDDY ______________ DEPARTMENT HEAD ______________
DAY 1 - SAFETY, PAPER, PEOPLE.
[ ] Fire route walked; assembly point and extinguisher shown.
[ ] Master key, pass key and key-card encoder rule explained and signed.
[ ] Uniform issue slip, name badge, locker and duty meal shown.
[ ] Staff entry, time office and attendance method explained.
[ ] Staff quarters and transport rules read, for live-in staff.
DAY 2 - PROPERTY AND PRODUCT.
[ ] Walk of rooms, restaurants, banquet halls, spa, pool and back-of-house corridors.
[ ] Room types, rates board and in-house amenities learnt.
[ ] Lost-and-found register and guest request log explained.
DAY 2-4 - DEPARTMENT SKILLS.
[ ] Front office: PMS login, check-in, folio, key encoding, night audit handover.
[ ] Housekeeping: trolley set-up, room-status board, turn-down, linen count.
[ ] F&B: pass, order ticket, mise-en-place, allergen board, banquet event order.
[ ] Kitchen: station, knife and hygiene rules, temperature log.
[ ] Maintenance and security: work order, round sheet, CCTV room rule.
DAY 4-5 - GUEST STANDARDS.
[ ] Greeting, grooming and the five questions guests ask most.
[ ] Complaint handling: listen, apologise, call the manager on duty.
DAY 5 - SIGN-OFF.
[ ] Buddy and head confirm tasks allowed solo.
[ ] Joiner lists two questions and one worry; head replies in writing.
[ ] 30-day review date fixed.Run the week by department
- 1
Front office joiners
They shadow a check-in, a check-out, an early arrival and a night-audit handover. They practise on the training login before touching a live folio. A wrong room posting is a billing error that the night auditor must unpick.
- 2
Housekeeping joiners
They do three rooms with the floor supervisor, covering bed making, bathroom reset, minibar check and the room-status board. Chemicals are shown with labels and gloves before the first spray.
- 3
F&B joiners
They stand at the pass during a lunch service, learn the order ticket flow and read the allergen board. For banquets, they read a banquet event order from top to bottom.
- 4
Kitchen joiners
They are told the station, the knife rules and the temperature log before the first chop. A commis never works a hot station on day two.
- 5
Engineering and security joiners
They carry the round sheet and learn the work-order flow. Security staff learn the guest ID check and the visitor log.
Resorts, boutiques and chains differ
A resort adds the pool lifeguard rule, the golf-cart or boat transfer rule and the nature-trail briefing. A boutique hotel puts weight on guest conversation, since staff serve the same few guests over several days. A business hotel adds executive lounge etiquette and express check-out. A guesthouse joiner may be the only person at the desk at night, so the safety lines expand and the sign-off waits longer.
Where first-week slips cost money
- A wrong folio posting at the front desk: the night auditor spends an hour unpicking it, and a guest sees an incorrect bill at check-out.
- A minibar item not recorded by housekeeping: the cost is lost, and the guest complains if it is billed late.
- A banquet table set for the wrong cover count because the event order was misread by a new steward.
- A lost key card encoded for the wrong room: a security issue before it is a service issue.
- Linen counted loosely between floors: the laundry count falls short by evening and nobody knows which floor.
Every line in the sheet is there to stop one of these. A new joiner learns more from watching a real error and its repair than from a rule read aloud. Show the folio correction screen, the minibar sheet and the linen count slip as part of the walk.
Who signs and where it goes
The time office opens the sheet on the joining morning. The department head owns days two to four. The buddy initials the lines. The joiner countersigns on Friday. A copy goes to the personnel file with the appointment letter and the uniform slip. For the wider paper trail, rely on the joining checklist template. The hotels and resorts hub places this sheet among the other pressure points in hospitality, from season swings to staff accommodation.
