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How to Write Household Staff Handover Notes Before Guests Arrive
It’s 2:15 p.m. and your shift is ending. Guests arrive at four. The spare room is made up, but the reading lamp you ordered is still in its box downstairs. If you write “guest room ready” in the shift book, the next person has no reason to go upstairs. What should you leave them instead?
A completed guest-room handover note
Here is a fictional handover between two household staff members. Jules is finishing the early shift. Robin will be on duty when the guests arrive.
| Field | What Jules writes |
|---|---|
| Room and deadline | Garden guest room. Guests expected at 4:00 p.m. |
| Checked at 2:10 p.m. | Bed made, towels laid out and water glasses on the tray. I checked these in the room. |
| Still open | The reading lamp for the bedside table is in its labelled box in the linen room. |
| Next action and owner | Robin will put the lamp on the bedside table and check that it switches on by 3:15 p.m. |
| If it cannot be used | Robin will tell the house manager by 3:20 p.m. so there is time to arrange a replacement. |
| Close the note | After checking the lamp in the room, Robin records the time and initials the entry in the shift book. |
Robin can now start with the linen room. At 3:05 p.m. the lamp is on the bedside table and working. Robin adds “3:05 p.m. – lamp in place and checked. RT.” If it is still boxed at 3:05, the item stays open. The appointment in the calendar tells the team when guests are due. This note tells them what the next person must do before then.
A shift handover template you can copy
Room or task: ___ Needed by: ___
I checked: ___ at ___
Still open: ___
Next person and action: ___ will ___ by ___
If that cannot happen: tell ___ by ___
Completion entry: ___ checked ___ at ___
Keep the room’s routine setup in the household handbook. In the shift note, refer to that routine and record what changed today. If another colleague needs to act, ask them to read the note and tell you their first step. If they have to ask where the lamp is, add its location before you leave.
A five-minute practice exercise for the team
Give a pair of colleagues the opening situation and a blank copy of the template. One writes the note. The other has one minute to find the owner, deadline and evidence that would close the task. Swap roles and change one detail: this time the lamp is in place but nobody has checked it. Compare the two completion entries.
For the underlying room routine, The House Steward includes the 23-page A Working Handbook for the Household, with a guest-room setup example. If you are teaching a group how to hand over a task, A Room to Teach includes a five-page workshop design checklist for choosing a measurable learning outcome and a practical exercise.