Working as a maid in Majorca

Working as a maid in Majorca is a very hard, not very rewarding job. I mention this at the outset due to the fact that not many people appreciate the work of these women, and this is definitely worth changing. Let me start by saying that if you know that your room/accommodation/apartment, whatever…. is being cleaned by a maid, remember that she is a human being too.

Don’t leave an unknowable mess behind. We all know that when on holiday no one wants to clean up, however, locks of hair can be thrown away and sand from the beach rinsed off in the shower. These women scrub floors on their knees and pick hair out of drains with their hands while you sunbathe on the beach. Leave a tip. Even if it’s just 1 euro. Smile, chat, have a nice day. The room you leave behind says a lot about you, even though these women don’t usually judge you, you often judge them and their work depends on you, the client, the guest.

The earnings of a maid in Majorca are described in a special table.

In the hotel industry, there are different salaries attached to the different jobs, which also depend on the number of stars in the hotel. You can see in the table whether working as a maid in Mallorca is profitable. The employer can of course pay more, it all depends on the hotel management. The maids also receive tips and the amount varies a lot. Sometimes it is 50 cents a day and sometimes 100 euros a day. It all depends on the day, the mood of the people and the type of rooms that are cleaned. Here is a link to a PDF file with a table: file:///C:/Users/natob/Desktop/tabla-hosteleria-baleares-2020.pdf
And here is a link to the report, in which I explain step by step what and where: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17875016518562374/

Very often tips are left on the day guests check out of the hotel on the bed. And it is on the days when guests check out that the most tips are given. Tipping is distributed differently, sometimes it is so that the tip is collected by the maid who enters the room first, and sometimes it is so that the governor (i.e. the superior of the maids) collects all tips and distributes them equally. In reality, everything looks as it does. Everyone behaves as they wish.

Working as a maid in Mallorca – working hours for maids.

This also depends on the hotel, but often the work of the maids starts as early as 7 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. In the morning, the maids clean the common areas, such as reception, patios, gardens, terraces, gyms, toilets, canteens and so on. After cleaning these parts, they get a list of the rooms they have to clean today and get ready with the equipment they need today.

The list includes information such as number of linen changes, number of check-ins, number of check-outs, check-in and check-out times, number of people in the room and room type. For example, one day we clean flats with terraces where there are usually several people. If there is a linen change in a particular flat on a particular day, I have to bring fresh linen with me to change. I load this onto a trolley. The maids also change the towels. You have to count the number of people in the rooms that you have on your list and load the appropriate number of towels onto the trolley. Everyone schedules their work as they are most comfortable.

The work starts in different ways, we started with the clients, that is, with the rooms where the clients stay.

In such rooms, towels are changed, the terrace is swept, beds are made up, rubbish is taken out – basic things. If there is an annotation about the change of bed linen in the list, then of course it is necessary to change the bed linen as well as the towels. If the guest does not wish to have the bed linen changed, he has to put a sign on the door handle saying “no molestar”, i.e. “do not disturb”.

Many times maids wake guests up or find them in embarrassing situations, because guests do not realise that maids already start cleaning rooms at around 8 am. And on holiday everyone likes to get some sleep… and not only ;). If such a notice is not taken off the room by 2 pm, the maid is unlikely to clean the room that day. At 2 p.m. the maids start cleaning the corridors and they are not really able to make it, so taking such a notice off the door at that time is a bit rude – just saying ;).

The second thing we did was the so-called SALIDAS, or guest check-outs. These rooms have to be cleaned from A to Z. You do everything in them, so they take a lot of time. It is very often the case that on a given day the clients check out at 11.30 in the morning, and at 12 noon new guests appear. These customers will check into the room. The maid then has to clean the room very quickly, and it can be really difficult. THEREFORE, IF YOU CHECK IN THE HOTEL AT NOON, DO NOT BE UPSET THAT YOUR ROOM IS NOT READY YET AND REMEMBER THAT THE POOR CLEANING LADY IS BEHIND IT AND YOUR MOANING, SCREAMING AND SIGHING WILL NOT HELP. Just saying ;).

Working as a maid in Majorca – advantages and disadvantages of working in rooms.

I have not worked very long as a maid, but I already know that it is a very demanding job and of course physically hard. Especially at the beginning, when your body is not used to cleaning for 8 hours with a 15-minute break. The equipment you use to clean is often broken, moderately efficient, or could just be better. I’m not going to elaborate on this here, as in fact many people have no idea what I’m talking about.

For example, I can tell you that in some hotels the maids have to carry bags of towels collected throughout the day from the rooms and take them to the laundry. This is usually a mass of kilos because people leave wet towels. Not all hotels have a chute for dirty towels and bed linen. There are many more situations like this, and hotel cleaners are treated as an inferior, lower-class person. While working at the reception desk, I encountered humiliation of maids behind their backs.

As for the advantages, I won’t lie, there are few.

You should definitely get paid more for such work. If only because a maid has to carry enormous loads, in addition to which she works in bacteria and dirt. They often come into contact with unpleasant substances, slurries, liquids and so on. The advantage is that you start work at 7, finish it at 15 and have most of the day off. However, you are so tired that you rarely want to do anything more than shower and couch.

The hotel also has afternoon shifts, the so-called “guardia”, but usually these women do not clean the rooms. They take care of the conference rooms, corridors, common areas, spa, laundry and many other things. The advantage of working on rooms is that there is little customer contact, practically no customer service, and it is quiet and peaceful. No one is standing over your head, but still – time pressure and cameras do their job. I can’t say that this job is not stressful, because I was very stressed while working in the rooms.

How do I get a job as a maid?

You do not need much here. In fact, you do not need any higher education or knowledge of languages. Everything will be shown to you by hand. On your first day you will work a few hours or a whole day with other maids to see what the job is like. Then you will be thrown in at the deep end. CVs are best distributed from hotel to hotel by hand. You can also try to send your CV online at the footer of the hotel website, under “trabaja con nosotros”. Another option is to sign up to groups on FB, where there are often job offers or “trabajo mallorca”, “mallorca job”, “bolsa de trabajo palma”. Instead of “mallorca” or “palma” it is worth to write the name of the town where you live, then you will get to groups in the area.

You can also do a lot through connections. That is how I got my last job. A better job is definitely being a cleaner in private villas or on yachts. For this I also recommend groups on FB and a google search where you can type: “trabajo limpieza mallorca”, “trabajo yacht club mallorca”, “trabajo yate mallorca” etc.

Do I recommend this job to beginners in Mallorca?

I think working as a maid in Mallorca can be overwhelming. Especially at the beginning, when everyone wants to work and explore the island and thinks that working in Mallorca is a long holiday. However, when it comes to cleaning private houses, yachts or flats, the situation may look a bit different. It depends on the conditions under which you will work. As well as for the position of receptionist, also for the position of maid, at the beginning you get a contract for one season. Only after 3 years of working in one place (3 seasons without breaks) you will get a better contract. But it all depends on the employer and your attitude to work and of course your dedication.

I do not recommend working as a maid in a hotel in Mallorca.

Each maid has 25-27 rooms to clean in less than 8 hours. You could say in 6.5 hours. So it comes out to about 15 minutes to clean one room. This is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve. With that said, many of the rooms are non-standard sizes. There are junior suites, suites, studios, suites, presidential rooms and a million other room types and sizes. In some hotels, there are literally flats for rent. Living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and several bedrooms and a terrace.

This can’t be cleaned in 15 minutes, and the maids have 25 rooms like this per head. IMPOSSIBLE TO DO. But the time pressure is enormous, because nobody wants to be fired and the guest must remain satisfied. So it’s worth thinking about this job properly, several times. Especially since cleaners in villas work for much shorter periods. In addition, no one rushes them and the hourly rate is much higher.

Working as a cleaner in the black.

As in every place on earth, so also in Mallorca many people work illegally. It is very common, and it happens very often when you come to Mallorca for the first time, and you are put against the wall. Many cleaners work this way. Many cleaners in villas and other places like that set up their own companies.

These women then pay the appropriate amount of tax themselves – which, of course, only pays off at a certain earnings level – just like everywhere else. It is not so colorful, easy and smooth. If you are planning this kind of work or preparing to move to Mallorca – remember that it can go smoothly, but it can also be hard, and be prepared for all the possibilities. I hope that with this post I have clarified a little the situation about working as a maid and cleaner in Mallorca. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments or messages!

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