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Why hospitality employees leave and how to understand why
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Hospitality · Backpacker hostels
HR for Backpacker Hostels: Front Desk, Dorm Housekeeping and Volunteer Staff
A backpacker hostel sells beds in shared dorms to young travellers and runs on a small, close team. This page looks at front desk shifts, dorm cleaning, volunteers and the late nights and noise that come with the trade.
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Share your requirementsA backpacker hostel offers beds in shared dorms and a few private rooms, with a common kitchen, a lounge and a rooftop or cafe where travellers meet. Guests are young, often from other countries, arrive at odd hours and stay for a few nights. A small team does everything: a manager, front desk staff who check in and answer questions, housekeeping for dorms and bathrooms, a cook or cafe helper, a night person and sometimes volunteers who work a few hours a day for a free bed. Occupancy is high in the travel season and low in the monsoon, and guest mix changes every day. Related reading: HR for hospitality. Because the same few people check in guests, clean 40 beds, handle noisy nights and listen to complaints, rotas, clear roles and fair stay terms keep a small team from burning out.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in backpacker hostels, you may see
- A tiny team covers everything
- Night work is lonely and risky
- Volunteers are used as free labour
- Dorm cleaning is hard and hurried
- Guest conduct tests the staff
- Seasons swing wildly
- Staff are young and move on
- Staff beds have no terms
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in backpacker hostels
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Hostel owners and managers
- Front desk and reception staff
- Night receptionists and security
- Dorm housekeeping staff
- Cafe and kitchen helpers
- Volunteers and work-exchange guests
- Event and tour desk coordinators
Roles we help you hire in backpacker hostels
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in backpacker hostels. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
Job descriptions for this sector
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
We set up the interview and hiring process for backpacker hostels
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
1. Role brief and scorecard
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
2. Stages and sequence
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
3. Question bank and scoring
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
4. Interviewer readiness
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
5. Offer and follow-up
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Where HR strains in backpacker hostels
A tiny team covers everything
The same person checks in guests at noon, cleans a dorm at three and handles a noisy night at two, with no clear boundaries.
Night work is lonely and risky
A night receptionist deals with late arrivals, drunk guests and emergencies alone, with little training.
Volunteers are used as free labour
Hours, tasks and the bed in exchange are unwritten, and a volunteer leaves when the work grows beyond the promise.
Dorm cleaning is hard and hurried
Beds, linen, lockers and bathrooms for many guests are cleaned in short windows between check-out and check-in.
Guest conduct tests the staff
Noise, alcohol, theft complaints and arguments between guests land on the front desk, and responses differ by person.
Seasons swing wildly
A full hostel in peak months and a quiet one in the rains leave the team stretched and then idle.
Staff are young and move on
Many staff are travellers themselves and leave after a few months, so training restarts constantly.
Staff beds have no terms
Staff stay on site in a spare dorm with no rules on privacy, hours or charges, which turns into friction.
HR topics for backpacker hostels
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Onboarding and Probation. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for hospitality, not in general.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a backpacker hostels business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Define roles for each shift
A one-page list of duties for front desk, housekeeping, night and cafe, so cleaning and guest service are not mixed in the same hour.
What this coversHide
Define roles for each shift
A one-page list of duties for front desk, housekeeping, night and cafe, so cleaning and guest service are not mixed in the same hour.
What this coversHide
A one-page list of duties for front desk, housekeeping, night and cafe, so cleaning and guest service are not mixed in the same hour.
Train and support night staff
Steps for late arrivals, intoxicated guests, noise, medical needs and who to call.
What this coversHide
Train and support night staff
Steps for late arrivals, intoxicated guests, noise, medical needs and who to call.
What this coversHide
Steps for late arrivals, intoxicated guests, noise, medical needs and who to call. The health and safety routine holds them.
Write a volunteer agreement
Hours per day, tasks, days off, bed and meals, conduct and how either side may end the arrangement.
What this coversHide
Write a volunteer agreement
Hours per day, tasks, days off, bed and meals, conduct and how either side may end the arrangement.
What this coversHide
Hours per day, tasks, days off, bed and meals, conduct and how either side may end the arrangement. Confirm the position with a qualified professional. The documentation process holds it.
Set a dorm cleaning standard and timings
A checklist per room with timings and a supervisor check, so turnover is quick and clean.
What this coversHide
Set a dorm cleaning standard and timings
A checklist per room with timings and a supervisor check, so turnover is quick and clean.
What this coversHide
A checklist per room with timings and a supervisor check, so turnover is quick and clean.
Publish house rules and a conduct response
Quiet hours, alcohol, visitors, damage and how the team responds, applied alike to every guest.
What this coversHide
Publish house rules and a conduct response
Quiet hours, alcohol, visitors, damage and how the team responds, applied alike to every guest.
What this coversHide
Quiet hours, alcohol, visitors, damage and how the team responds, applied alike to every guest.
Plan for season swings
A core team for the low months, a list of trained extras for peaks and a handover pack for new joiners.
What this coversHide
Plan for season swings
A core team for the low months, a list of trained extras for peaks and a handover pack for new joiners.
What this coversHide
A core team for the low months, a list of trained extras for peaks and a handover pack for new joiners. The onboarding steps can be shortened for this.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Write down what the front desk person does between 10 am and 4 pm.
- Ask the night person what they would do if a guest was sick at 3 am.
- See what has been agreed with volunteers and whether it is written.
- Time a dorm turnover and compare with the checklist.
- Read last month's complaints and see how each was handled.
- Ask how staff beds are allotted and what the rules are.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the guest register, worker and staff accommodation obligations that apply, and note open items.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Employee onboarding
A handover pack so a new joiner is useful in the first week.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Night duty and emergency steps for small teams.
- HR documentation
Volunteer agreements, role sheets and staff bed terms.
- Attendance, shift and leave
Fair rotas for desk, night and housekeeping duties.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in hospitality, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
One employee, three versions of the record: fixing employee information management
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
Industries
A practical safety routine for rubber product makers: who checks what, and when
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
HR Process
Onboarding a freelancer: access, data and confidentiality in the first week
A first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Write down hours, tasks, days off, the bed and meals offered and how the arrangement ends. Check the legal position with a qualified professional, since free labour can raise questions.
Train them on common situations, give a contact list and an escalation number and make sure someone checks on them. Rotate the duty fairly.
Use a room checklist, set timings and have a supervisor check a sample. Staff then know what finished looks like.
Write who may stay, any charge, rules for privacy and visitors and what happens on leaving. Confirm the terms with a qualified professional.
Keep a short onboarding pack, document the routines and give a step to senior roles. Training becomes quick when the basics are written.
We would look at what each role actually does, how night duty is supported and what is agreed with volunteers. A role sheet with a night duty plan, or a volunteer agreement and staff bed terms, is a likely opener. We set out scope, timing and fee in writing afterwards, so you decide what goes ahead.
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