Minimum staff for hotels in Ireland and a Health and Safety

Bookworm85

Hi all,

I'm not sure if anybody here can answer this question for me, but I think that this is the most appropriate place to ask. Mods - please move if this post isn't appropriate here.

Is there a minimum staffing level required for hotels in Ireland?

Over the weekend myself and a few friends stayed in a hotel in Co. Galway. We arrived late enough on Friday evening (9.00 ish) after travelling from Cork. We checked in and headed out for a bite to eat and a few drinks. We were given a code to get into the hotel if we found the doors locked when we came back.

We got back to the hotel about 1.00 am to find the whole place in darkness, we had to use cigarette lighters and our mobile phones to make our way back to our rooms. NO LIGHT SWITCHES on the walls in the corridors! There were absolutely NO STAFF in the hotel that night and there wasn't even a contact number for us to contact anybody and there was nobody on reception when we left the following day, we had to get the bar maid to check us out.

Now everything in the hotel is perfect. Rooms clean, great value etc. But I've stayed in plenty of hotels throughout the country and there has always been staff during around in the wee hours of the night (night porter/ night watchman), and have certainly never returned to find the whole hotel in darkness. Surely there is a health and safety issue regarding lighting. Also, in the event of us needing to contact anybody during the night (lets just say about other guests being noisy, needing a doctor) we had no way of contacting anyone.

Any thoughts?

Paulw

Write to the owners/manager of the hotel and explain your issues.

See what they say.

Bullseye1

I was recently at a wedding reception and the staff who were working at 2.30am were the same staff serving breakfast at 9.30 (time we went for breakfast so could have been on earlier) is this legal?

Thoie

It's not unusual for a place to appear empty at night, but usually that sort of place would have motion sensors to light your way in. I've also seen quite a few places have someone in the hotel overnight, but not necessarily just sitting at the front desk - for the staff's security/comfort they'd often be in a room somewhere over night, but if you needed attention you'd just dial 0 (or 9 or whatever) for reception and it would patch you through to wherever the staff were.

Bookworm85

Thoie wrote: »

It's not unusual for a place to appear empty at night, but usually that sort of place would have motion sensors to light your way in. I've also seen quite a few places have someone in the hotel overnight, but not necessarily just sitting at the front desk - for the staff's security/comfort they'd often be in a room somewhere over night, but if you needed attention you'd just dial 0 (or 9 or whatever) for reception and it would patch you through to wherever the staff were.

Well it was a tiny hotel, no more than 20 rooms and spread over 2 floors. We checked the entire hotel that night, knocked on every door and there wasn't a sinner in the place. I understand that they might not have somebody on reception during the night, but we checked everywhere for someone to turn the lights on for us and there was no-one about.

regarding dialing 0, that wasn't an option as there were no telephones in the room

Write to the owners/manager of the hotel and explain your issues.

See what they say.

I plan to, its not that I want to complain or anything. We managed OK in the end, but I just found it really unusual to have all the lights off and nobody to keep an eye on the place or to assist guests.

JohnC.

Bullseye1 wrote: »

I was recently at a wedding reception and the staff who were working at 2.30am were the same staff serving breakfast at 9.30 (time we went for breakfast so could have been on earlier) is this legal?

That's only 7 hours. Plenty of people work more than 7 hours.

the_syco

Kahless wrote: »

That's only 7 hours. Plenty of people work more than 7 hours.

Bullseye1 may mean that they were working up to and including 2.30, and back in for the morning shift.

Bullseye1 wrote: »

I was recently at a wedding reception and the staff who were working at 2.30am were the same staff serving breakfast at 9.30 (time we went for breakfast so could have been on earlier) is this legal?

Usually illegal, unless they got to rest at another time?

foggy_lad

Would fire safety regulations not require some member of staff be on the premises all night? I know the same situation happened regularly in a small hotel in Carlow but usually mid-week to save on the cost of a night porter.

Stinicker

I used to work in a Hotel as Night Porter, so know about this. General way it went where I worked was;

I'd come in around 11pm and the receptionist would then go home at 11.30, the Duty Manager would give me the lowdown on the happenings as sometimes you'd have guests arriving late etc. due to late flights in which case I'd have to let them in and check them in etc.

My responsibility was then to lockup the various exits and check windows and fire escapes, where I worked was an older hotel that operated a key into reception system so I knew if the guests were in or out, if in I would then proceed for my nightly hoovering of what I later worked out to be about an acre of carpet, then I'd have to clean the glasses from the bar, dry and polish them, set fires for the morning, take out the rubbish from the various bins etc. All this would done from 1 to 6.30am and if guests were out I'd just hoover around the door area in the hope they'd appear for me to let them in.

Sometimes I'd operate the bar until late and try and hurry everything else then. I was all on my own and would also have to do other tasks like haul up anything upto 20 to 30 laundry sacks of clean linen and towels etc to the housekeeping stations and take back down the stuff to go out to the Laundry service. All this while trying to watch the phone and often having to do basic room service during the night for guests. Having guests come down when they'd have a complaint. There was tonnes of work to do and it was actually hard, the pay was good and I was earning far more than day porters. Still however the loneliness and general lack of sleep eventually drove me out of the job and I resigned after only a few months.

As for the questions raised here, it is normal to reduce lighting in the hotel to save electricity, however this was done by turning off about a third of the bulbs and dimming the others, it was always light just poorly during the night which was fine as no one was generally around! There probably was someone around but most likely he was asleep, depending on what he had to do, in my case it was rarely I had an opportunity but when I did I used to sleep in lobby so that if a guest wanted something they could easily wake me!

As a night porter you see and hear everything going on, I had some very good and funny experiences and some people really lose the run of themselves once away from home. My biggest nightmare was when the firealarm went off in the middle of night on a false alarm, that was a nightmare to deal with, woken grumpy guests were not so pleased, and being on my own and had to deal with it!

Hotels = never again!

sickpuppy32

i can relate, always the added benefit of having a a kiss and a cuddle with some of the more lonely female guests. best job in the world but my pay sucked