In appreciation for the service provided, many hotel guests choose to leave a gratuity for their room attendants either daily or as a lump sum on the final morning of occupancy. This is usually accomplished by leaving a nominal amount of cash on the desk or bedside table, often with a brief thank-you note or merely by placing the television remote control on top of the currency to ensure it does not blow away, signaling that the money was left intentionally. Some hotels offer an envelope or tent card for this purpose with a scripted message from the room attendant. This can serve as a gentle reminder for guests to remember the contributions of hotel housekeeping personnel, whom most guests rarely interact with, especially during short-term stays. A 2017 New York Times article reported that only about 30 percent of hotel guests leave a gratuity.
The Challenges
There are numerous challenges that housekeeping managers must consider when deciding how to implement and administer a gratuity policy for their departmental associates. Some of these considerations include whether the room attendant can keep the gratuity or whether it should be shared with other housekeeping associates. For income reporting and taxation purposes, are recipients of these gratuities required to report such tips to their employer? Depending on the amount of gratuities tendered, could the hotel seek an offset or credit of a portion of an employee’s hourly wage or employer-paid FICA taxes, similar to what many restaurateurs are permitted to do? Will the gratuity program potentially conflict with a hotel’s established resort fee? Given that it may be several hours before a guestroom is entered by the room attendant for servicing, what prevents some other employee from entering the room seeking to abscond with a gratuity meant for the room attendant? Additionally, room attendants are not always assigned the same guestrooms to clean on a daily basis, nor do they typically work seven days a week. Hence, if a guest who stays for multiple nights opts to wait until the morning of checkout to leave a gratuity, it is possible that a different employee will receive the tip than the one who serviced the guest’s room.
Leveraging QR Codes
While many of the aforementioned challenges have existed for years, technology has created an impediment and perhaps also offers a solution. In today’s hospitality realm, many guests travel with minimal cash, relying on credit cards, debit cards, and mobile payment options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or contactless payment systems such as Square, Venmo, and PayPal. Similarly, many hotels no longer keep large amounts of cash at the front desk, making it difficult to exchange large bills for smaller denominations to be used for gratuities. The potential tech solution is the use of a unique QR code placed in each guestroom, where a guest may click and render an optional gratuity via mobile device. The date and time of each payment would be linked to the hotel room number and dates of stay, thus enabling the hotel to administer a housekeeping gratuity program with certainty. Gratuities could be paid and reported to the appropriate employee(s) who serviced the rooms through their weekly paycheck. While not a perfect system, it will potentially result in increased gratuity levels for housekeepers over time.
