Job Description Jan 2025
Assistant House Manager £13ph
The EarthSpirit Centre is a busy, award winning, venue situated five miles outside Glastonbury for groups specialising in personal growth, spiritual development and complimentary therapies. The Assistant House Manager is the main support for the House Manager and jointly responsible for the cleaning and presentation of the Centre. It is a flexible-hours position approximately 25-30 hours (typically over 4 days) a week, depending on occupancy of the centre, and would suit someone with initiative and some hospitality experience and flair.
The position is offered as a ‘come-in’ basis to someone living locally and is guided and supported by the House Manager, working with a small dedicated team of typically around half a dozen people. It includes cleaning and tidying but also liasing with clients at the centre to ensure a great experience for visitors both before during and after their retreat with us. You’ll also assist the manager with staff recruitment, training, and issues as that may arise.
Specific duties include:
- Preparing for each group’s arrival, arranging and cleaning the main halls, bedrooms, bathrooms, compost loos and dining room etc according to requests.
- Fast and thorough cleaning essential.
- Organising rotas for casual help with cleaning where necessary.
- Welcoming groups when they arrive, ensuring all their rooms are ready, showing them how the centre works, providing leaders with a Health and Safety checklist and ensuring they appoint monitors where appropriate (fire, urn, etc). Dealing with any queries or requests as they arise.
- Liaising and dealing – together with other members of the EarthSpirit team - with any requests which may arise ‘out of hours’ after the group has arrived.
- Working occasional weekends to lead the team when changeovers are scheduled and/or when the House Manager is unavailable.
- Looking after any participants who may arrive early.
- Being the point of contact for groups’ enquiries while they are here (shared with the house manager and others as guided by the general manager. See the EarthSpirit guide to being point of contact for more details).
- Liaising with incoming groups regarding any requests and ensuring they have completed the relevant welcome forms and that dietary information is passed on to the kitchen.
- Closing down when a group leaves, turning off water heaters, lights etc. and starting up the centre after a fallow period.
- Collecting Questionnaires from guests/rooms and passing them on to the Office with any verbal feedback from guests.
- Assist the House Manager with the laundry: this is done ‘in house’, except where there is a need to send it out for laundering when there are unusually large groups/fast turnover changeovers.
- Re-cycling where possible.
- Spotting repair and maintenance jobs and liaising with the maintenance team and office.
- Helping to organise deep-cleaning - rooms, carpets, curtains and sofas, windows, floors etc - when there are breaks between groups; cleaning and treatment of the wooden floors to keep them in good condition.
Ordering cleaning supplies.
Housekeeper Skills and Qualifications
Knowledge of and experience in Cleaning and Sanitising rooms to varying levels to meet requirements. The ability to adapt to different situations and change work processes to accommodate customer needs, ability to receive feedback, listening skills to make sure that they are meeting the needs of their clients for cleanliness and sanitation standards, good customer service skills, reliability, organisational skills, integrity and honesty, high energy levels. Has competent computer skills in Word and Excel.
Remuneration and Conditions:-
- This is an hourly paid role, with standard holiday pay (pro-rata), etc. at £13 p/h from January 2025 (not subject to the 2025 annual pay review in April).
- Hours vary according to how busy the centre is, but generally an average of 25-30 hours per week. Some weekend days will be required (typically every other Sunday) and possibly (not often) a few later finishes: 5.30pm – 6.30pm to be arranged with the House Manager, due to occasional last-minute requests by incoming groups. Typically, the role works out to two longer days and two shorter days a week and doesn’t demand working outside 9.15am to 5.30pm. The centre is particularly busy over summer and so hours should be expected to increase during this period.
- Share of tips from guests
- Occasional spa evenings provided for staff and volunteers at the centre Visit our website www.earthspirit-centre.co.uk to for an over view of the Centre and the kind of groups that come here.