Roster the housekeeping team to the departure wave
Hotel housekeeping scheduling software is software that decides how many attendants to roster, when their shifts start and who fills them, from tomorrow's departures and stayovers in your property management system (PMS), the system your front desk uses. HotelCadence sits beside the room-assignment app your floor supervisors already use (Flexkeeping, Optii, the PMS housekeeping module) and answers the question those apps leave open: how many people, at what hour, within which labour law. Included in every package from US$6 per scheduled employee per month.
HotelCadence is workforce software for hotels. It reads the bookings already in your property system, forecasts how busy each department will be hour by hour, builds the roster to match, records worked hours and prepares payroll. Department heads approve every roster. From US$6 per scheduled employee per month.
The fixed headcount is sized for Saturday and paid for on Tuesday
Picture a 300-room business hotel. The executive housekeeper rosters 17 attendants every day, all starting at 08:00, because that is what a full Saturday needs. On Tuesday, with 60 departures and 174 stayovers, the team finishes by 13:00 and the afternoon is paid idle time.
On the Saturday a tour group adds 40 departures to the 180 already in the PMS. The rooms empty between 10:00 and 12:30, the 15:00 ready-by time arrives with 30 rooms still dirty, the front desk holds arrivals in the lobby, and two supervisors inspect rooms themselves. Overtime is paid on the one day of the week the roster was sized for.
Housekeeping carries the largest share of rostered hours in most hotels and the sharpest daily curve. The work is set by departures, stayovers and room type, and those three numbers sit in the PMS the night before. Rostering from them is the first step of optimizing the staff you already have. Robots and outsourcing come after, sized to the gap the roster cannot close. Read the five-step method on the how it works page.
How housekeeping scheduling software turns departures into waves
- 1
Read the drivers from the PMS
Departures, stayovers, vacant-dirty rooms and room type per day, with group check-outs and late check-outs flagged, from OPERA Cloud, Mews, Cloudbeds or Shiji. Occupancy alone is never the input.
- 2
Apply the minutes per room
The executive housekeeper sets the labour standard: minutes per departure room, per stayover, per vacant-dirty, by room type, plus an allowance for travel, carts and linen. The standard carries the service promise.
- 3
Design the waves
A first wave for stayovers and early departures, the main wave timed to check-out, a late wave for late check-outs and DND rooms, turndown where the standard asks for it. Every shift sits inside the market's working-hour, rest and overtime rules.
- 4
Fill and approve
Attendants assigned by floor, section, skill and contract hours, with casual and agency pools on the same roster. The executive housekeeper sees the departures behind each shift, edits, and approves. Nothing publishes without them.
Built around check-out and ready-by, the two times that matter
Waves that follow the departure curve
Shift starts follow the hours rooms empty. A 300-room hotel with 180 departures runs three waves; the 60-departure Tuesday runs two. The ready-by time is a constraint, so rooms come back before the arrival wave.
Room type weighting
A suite departure takes longer than a standard room departure. Minutes per room type are set once per property and applied to tomorrow's mix, so a suite-heavy group check-out is rostered for what it costs.
Group and holiday check-outs
A tour block of 80 rooms leaving on the same morning, Golden Week or Chinese New Year departures: the forecast shows them two weeks out and the roster staffs the wave before it lands.
Works beside your room-assignment app
Flexkeeping, Optii or the PMS housekeeping board assigns rooms to attendants on the day. HotelCadence decides how many attendants and when. The two run side by side; neither replaces the other.
Casual and agency pools
Daily-wage casuals and agency attendants are rostered against the same forecast with their own contract rules and cost, so the price of each wave is visible before it is published.
Labour law as a constraint
Working-hour limits, rest periods between shifts, weekly rest days and overtime caps per market are rules the optimizer obeys before it drafts a shift. The employee hours tracking guide lists the rules per market.
Three days at one hotel: hours needed, hours paid
The same 300-room hotel at the standard the executive housekeeper signed: 30 minutes per departure room, 15 per stayover, a 10% allowance for travel, carts and linen, eight-hour shifts, check-out at 12:00, rooms ready by 15:00. The flat roster puts 17 attendants on at 08:00 every day. The wave roster staggers starts at 07:00, 09:00 and 11:00 and sizes each wave to the day. Worked example, figures indicative.
| Day | Departures / stayovers | Hours the standard needs | Flat roster, 17 at 08:00 | Wave roster |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday | 180 / 54 | 114 | 136 paid; rooms back by 15:00 only if nothing runs late | 17 attendants (10 at 07:00, 5 at 09:00, 2 at 11:00): 136 paid, rooms back by 15:00 |
| Thursday | 110 / 120 | 94 | 136 paid; team idle from 14:00 | 12 attendants (7 at 07:00, 5 at 09:00): 96 paid |
| Tuesday | 60 / 174 | 81 | 136 paid; team idle from 13:00 | 11 attendants (6 at 07:00, 5 at 09:00): 88 paid |
| A week with two Saturdays, one Thursday and four Tuesdays | 646 | 952 paid | 704 paid, 26% fewer hours, same ready-by time |
Worked example, figures indicative. Saturday: (180 × 30 + 54 × 15) × 1.1 = 6,831 minutes, 114 hours. The wave roster needs 17 on Saturday, where the hours alone suggest 15, because the 15:00 ready-by time binds: ten attendants from 07:00 clear the stayovers before the departure rooms empty. Run your own property through the hotel staffing calculator.
Tokyo, Golden Week: overtime down 18%, every room back by 15:00
A Tokyo business hotel on OPERA Cloud met Golden Week's double departure waves with a flat roster built from a 30-day-old spreadsheet forecast: overtime on the wave days, rooms back late. With departures forecast per day from the PMS and the housekeeping plan rebuilt as pickup firmed, holiday-quarter overtime fell 18% against the baseline and every room was back in inventory by 15:00 on every Golden Week day. Review scores held. Read how it was measured in the Tokyo Golden Week housekeeping case study.
The hotel housekeeping staff rostering guide walks through the same five steps in detail, with the labour standard arithmetic and when robots and outsourcing earn their place.
Questions executive housekeepers ask
What is hotel housekeeping scheduling software?
Hotel housekeeping scheduling software is software that decides how many room attendants a hotel needs per hour, when their shifts start and who fills them, from the departures, stayovers and room types in the PMS. HotelCadence applies the minutes-per-room standard your executive housekeeper sets, times the waves to check-out and the ready-by time, and keeps every shift inside local labour law.
How is this different from Flexkeeping, Optii or the PMS housekeeping board?
Those apps assign rooms to attendants on the day and track cleaning status. They start from the team you already rostered. HotelCadence sets that team: how many attendants, which start times, which contracts, two weeks ahead. Hotels run both: HotelCadence for the roster, the room-assignment app for the floor.
How are minutes per room set?
By the executive housekeeper, per room type and status, during onboarding. A common indicative starting point is 30 minutes per departure room, 15 per stayover and 20 per vacant-dirty, plus 10% for travel and carts, then adjusted to your property. The standard is written down, so the roster and the service promise share one number.
Can it handle group check-outs and public holidays?
Yes. Group blocks come straight from the PMS with their departure date, and holiday calendars such as Golden Week and Chinese New Year are configured per property. The forecast shows the wave about two weeks out and the roster staffs it, with the ready-by time as a constraint.
Which labour rules does it respect?
Daily and weekly working-hour limits, rest periods between shifts, weekly rest days and overtime caps for each market, configured during onboarding. The optimizer treats them as constraints before it drafts a shift. The employee hours tracking guide summarises the rules for Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Australia.
Which package includes housekeeping scheduling?
All of them. Workforce scheduling is in Run the day at US$6 per scheduled employee per month. Forecast-driven auto-scheduling, where the departure forecast drafts the waves, lives in Predict and automate. Local-currency prices are on the pricing page.
30 minutes · your own PMS data if you share access · no obligation.