A housekeeping team of six, sixty rooms, one trolley and eight hours. That is the shape of most hotel days in central Scotland. Most of what decides whether people finish with a sore back, a wet sock or a scratched hand is kit chosen once a year and then forgotten.
We supply hotels, guest houses and serviced apartments around Airdrie, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the questions are always the same. Safety shoes or just sensible ones? Tabard or tunic? What do you hand someone who finds a needle behind a bedside table?
Feet first, because the bathroom floor is the hazard
HSE is blunt about this one. Slips and trips remain the single most common cause of major injury in UK workplaces, and in catering and hospitality the occupations most affected are kitchen assistants, chefs and waiting staff.
A wet bathroom floor is obvious. Shower trays, tiled floors with the wrong polish and the corridor where the trolley drips are less so.
The standard for occupational footwear is EN ISO 20347. There is no toe cap, and the marking tells you what you are buying. O1 gives a closed heel, antistatic properties and energy absorption at the seat. O2 adds water penetration and absorption resistance, so a wet floor does not soak through. O3 adds penetration resistance and a cleated outsole.
On the 2021 edition, slip resistance sits inside the basic requirement and the old SRA, SRB and SRC codes are gone. Look for the SR mark, tested on ceramic tile with glycerine, the harder of the two tests.
Three pairs we sell to housekeeping teams: the Work Shoe O1 at £19.50, the Occupational Microfibre Slip On Shoe O2 FO SR at £29.90, and the Occupational Textile Trainer OB SR at £41.00, all ex VAT. The £29.90 slip on is the one that gets reordered. It is an O2, light enough for eight hours, and comes off at the room door without untying.
Sixty rooms is a manual handling shift
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 ask three things. Avoid hazardous handling where you can, assess what you cannot avoid, reduce the risk. Most hotel risk assessments mention beds and linen and then stop.
The real loads are a mattress turned at arm's length, a linen bag dragged rather than lifted, and forty towel changes in a day. HSE Catering Information Sheet 24 is written for kitchens but the pattern is the same: awkward posture, repetition, and load held away from the body.
Two cheap fixes. Knee pads, because skirting boards are where the kneeling happens. The High Density Knee Pad is £7.10 and the Beeswift Foldable Trouser Knee Pads, which slip inside the trousers, are £7.68. Second, a laundry bag that gets carried instead of dragged. The Towel City Laundry Bag is £6.15 and the 60 litre vinyl bag for a jolly trolley is £17.93.
Tabard, tunic or polo
A housekeeping tabard is not PPE. It is a hygiene and presentation layer, and it gets washed more often than anything else in the building. That is the argument for buying three per person rather than one.
The Warrior Pocket Tabard at £12.48 measures 74cm and suits taller staff. The Premier Pocket Tabard at £13.48 is 68cm and the one we sell most, with a pen pocket that survives industrial laundry.
Tunics suit supervisors and front of house better than room attendants, mostly on cost. The CHMT1 Mens Tunic is £15.00 and the CHLT1 Classic Tunic is £18.50. For poolside or maintenance, the Regatta Pro 50/50 Pique Polo at £7.65 takes embroidery without pulling.
If staff take tabards home to wash, buy enough that nobody wears yesterday's. Infection control guidance for care settings puts uniforms at 60 degrees, and hotel uniforms are no different in principle.
Hands, chemicals and the dermatitis conversation
Work related contact dermatitis is one of the main causes of ill health in catering and hospitality. Hands are affected first, then forearms and face. It starts as itchy, dry or red skin and is much easier to treat caught early. HSE's advice: avoid contact where you can, provide gloves and moisturiser where you cannot, and get staff checking their own hands.
Glove choice matters more than price. Disposable blue nitrile, at £6.85 for a hundred, is right for light bathroom work and general cleaning. A Chem 300 latex double dipped gauntlet at £2.46 is right for diluted washroom chemicals. The Pawa PG610 at £7.65 is the glove when the COSHH assessment names a substance with a breakthrough time, because it carries an EN ISO 374-1 Type A rating.
Household latex gloves at 59p a pair are fine for a quick job and a poor default, given how common latex allergy is among cleaning staff.
The thing nobody plans for: a needle in the bin
HSE is clear that needles and syringes collected in public places are a proven source of bloodborne virus contamination. Never handle them yourself, and if you find them, inform the local authority and request a clinical waste collection.
So the first control is a procedure, not a product. Nobody picks it up, nobody drops it in the room bin where it ends up in a compactor. The room is closed, the supervisor is called, the collection is arranged. Staff should know that sequence before they need it.
If a trained person has to deal with a sharp, the Needle Resistant F350 glove at £55.50 gives puncture resistance well beyond a handling glove, and a Body Fluid Spill Kit with disinfectant powder at £65.02 deals with the rest of the scene. A needlestick from a contaminated sharp is reportable under RIDDOR.
What the kit costs
Per room attendant, at current list prices ex VAT:
- Three Premier Pocket Tabards: £40.44
- One pair Occupational Microfibre Slip On Shoes O2: £29.90
- One box of 100 blue nitrile gloves: £6.85
- One pair High Density Knee Pads: £7.10
- One Towel City Laundry Bag: £6.15
That is £90.44 a head, or £542.64 for a team of six. Shared kit comes on top: a wet floor sign at £7.35, a £2.46 gauntlet for anyone who decants, and a spill kit at £65.02 per floor.
None of it is expensive next to a slip claim or a back injury that takes an experienced room attendant off the rota for a month. Buy it as a set, not one item at a time when something fails.
We hold all of it in stock and can put a housekeeping kit together against your room count. Call us on +44(0)1236 755544, or browse the housekeeping range and the aprons and tabards in the shop.
