Role design and job descriptions for Homestays: who does what when the owner is also the host
In a homestay the same person may cook, serve, carry bags and fix the pump. Clear duties let the family step back from every small decision and give guests a steadier stay.
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Share your requirementsWhy role design and job descriptions matters in homestays
Homestay jobs grew from need, not design. The caretaker started as a watchman, then began receiving guests, then driving them to the viewpoint. The cook now orders vegetables as well. Nobody ever sat down and said so, so each person carries a private idea of the job, and the owner holds the only complete picture.
That works until somebody is ill or leaves. The new person asks what to do, and the family realises it has never said. Clear duties on a page do not make the home formal. They make a bad morning easier, because anyone covering can see what has to happen before guests wake.
How to set it up
1. Write down one full weekend
Note every task from the first guest call to the last bed made, and who did it. Include small things such as lighting the water heater, filling drinking water and locking the gate.
2. Group tasks into three or four roles
Typically kitchen, rooms, outdoors and guest welcome. Some people will hold two roles, and that is fine if it is stated. Mark which tasks only family members may do, such as taking money.
3. Draft a page for each role
Plain words on purpose, start and finish times, the tasks, who gives instructions and who to call for each kind of problem. Read it aloud to the person and change what they say is wrong.
4. Fix a single route for instructions
Choose one family member for daily instructions, and one for guest complaints. Everyone else passes requests through them. See the attendance and leave process for covering absence.
5. Review the pages after the first busy month
Ask the team what the page missed. Update it, date it and give a copy to each person. New helpers are given theirs on the first day.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Ask three helpers separately what their main duty is and see if the answers match yours.
- Count tasks that only one person knows how to do, such as the pump or the gas cylinder change.
- List which family members give orders to staff, and note whether they ever contradict each other.
- Look at the last time a helper was absent and note what was missed on that day.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach role design and job descriptions in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
A short page is enough. The aim is to settle who does what, so guests are served the same way whoever is on duty. A page of ten lines for each helper is plenty.
Talk it through before it becomes a quarrel. Often the page missed a real task, and the pay or hours need a fair change. Do not use the page as a weapon.
Yes. When the family's own duties are written, helpers see that the rules apply to everyone, and the family sees how much is carried by one person.