Shift handover: how to run it without losing information

Shift change is the most fragile moment of the day. The person leaving is in a hurry, the person arriving has to rebuild two hours of context in five minutes, and the handover almost always happens verbally while both are doing something else.

The four things that must always pass on

1. Faults and anomalies: equipment drifting, deliveries received short, temperature alarms already handled.
2. Open tasks: what is left to do and by when.
3. Guest information: special bookings, unresolved complaints, allergies noted.
4. Critical stock: what will run out before the next delivery.

Write during the shift, not at the end

A handover written at the end of service is already a reconstruction. Written the moment the problem appears, the note carries the right time and the useful detail. It is also the only way the colleague arriving early sees it while the previous shift is still running.

Why the channel matters

The WhatsApp group looks free but is not: information mixes with personal messages, is tied to no shift, and forces the next person to scroll backwards. A handover linked to the site, the shift and its author stays searchable months later, when you need to know since when a fridge started drifting.