On Hospitality
When I talk about organizational development work with a lens of peace, trust and cookies, I promise I’m not being cute.
Think about a time when you felt most cared for. When you were welcomed in as a stranger or guest. What did that look like? Feel like? Taste like?
For me, it is sweet tea on a porch in the Southern summer heat. It is an interreligious iftar during Ramadan in a small mosque in Mindanao. It is a list of friends bringing food, toys for the oldest, and helping around the house when a new baby has come.
In your own personal examples, did any of them happen at work? Do you feel welcome at work? Cared for? Why or why not?
We all know the standards of what it means to show up at a workplace are changing - people want to be able to show up as their authentic selves, employees are looking for more balance between work and personal life, and HR departments tout the benefits of “self-care.”
Hospitality has something to offer to this moment. When senior managers and directors perceive themselves to be stuck in cycles of “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” scenarios with the colleagues, I wonder how many have taken a step back and asked themselves what it means to show that they truly see and care for those they spend 40 hours a week with every week.
At one point I was part of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion working group at my workplace. I joined after the group had already begun putting organization-wide trainings into place. Trainings that took place in a generic meeting space with the only thing provided was handouts and some pens for 4+ hours of deep learning and processing.
I didn’t have too many opinions about the group’s path forward but I was adamant that from a list in my head of how we could imbue the trainings with hospitality we, at the very least, needed snacks. I was told it “wasn’t in the budget” but I went and purchased snacks anyways, and worked to find a cheaper meeting space so that snacks could be “in the budget.”
After that, the trainings weren’t perfect, but we had significantly more positive remarks about the sessions. Was it because of the intrinsic magic of costco-bought granola bars? No, it was because the snacks were a marker that we cared about the well-being of the people at the training and we wanted to make the burden of this hard work a little easier in a way we could.
And I do not mean, throw some nice cookies out at an organization wide meeting and say you cared. What I mean is - how are you truly caring for your employees (i.e. what are your intentions), then what are the markers of that, and do your employees feel as cared for as you think they are.
Are you genuinely interested in their life? Do you make space in their work for their personal needs (do you even know what those are)? Have you done random acts of appreciation (not just a perfunctory once-a-year-at-the-holidays-gift)? Do you have policies and procedures to provide staff-care (such as stipends), in addition to encouraging self-care? And yes, do you bring snacks?
We all know what it feels like to walk into someone’s home and be welcomed with gracious hospitality. We feel like we’re in the right place, that we belong, that we are wanted. How can we transform our workplaces to look, feel, and even taste the same way? How would this impact the culture of our workplace and happiness of those who dedicate their time and talent to our mission?
Resources
Hospitality doesn’t need to be some grand gesture, but it does need to be genuine. One of my favorite and simplest ways to show people I care about them is to pass along an Affirmator card - funny and sweet - that I picked specifically for them.