Can unreasonable hospitality be an antidote to employee switch-off?

In a year that’s seen a downward turn in employee engagement and emotional investment in work, organisations are searching for innovative solutions to reconnect with their employees. For many companies, the workplace has been an important tool to repair fragmented relationships between employees and their work, company and teams.

From curated event calendars to state-of-the-art office redesigns, there has been no shortage of inspiration – and, in some cases, investment – to get employees excited about coming back to the office. Despite these efforts, organisations are still facing resistance from employees to come into the workplace for more than three days a week. So, what’s holding them back?

The power of service

We still eat out when we have kitchens at home. We still flock to cinemas despite having streaming at our fingertips. So why, the moment work came home, did the office lose its appeal?

The difference lies in service and experience. Restaurants don’t just feed us, they host us. Cinemas don’t just screen films, they transport us into a different world. In contrast, too many offices have offered only the functional – a desk, a chair, a Wi-Fi code – sprinkled with surface-level hospitality like a barista bar or soft furnishings.

As companies wrestle with luring people back, perhaps the lesson is not more perks but better service. Could a culture of ‘unreasonable hospitality’ – the kind that anticipates, surprises and delights – be the antidote to employee disengagement?

Unreasonable hospitality

When restaurateur Will Guidara became general manager of Eleven Madison Avenue in New York at just 26, he transformed the restaurant’s service culture through a radical idea he called ‘unreasonable hospitality.’ His team would research every guest, learn their faces, and greet them by name. The result was highly impactful – diners felt seen, remembered, and cared for in a way that transcended ordinary service.

In his 2022 book Unreasonable Experience, Guidara argues that this approach should extend far beyond restaurants. ‘Whatever you do for a living, you can choose to be in the hospitality business,’ he writes. For the corporate workplace, facing challenges of hybrid work, disengagement, and competition for talent, this philosophy offers a blueprint for reimagining how organisations connect with employees and clients alike.

Unreasonable hospitality goes further than standard ‘work perks’ – it’s fundamentally about culture. The concept embodies genuine, human-centred gestures that create memorable moments and a sense of belonging. By prioritising care and surprise over efficiency or convention, workplaces can transcend the purely transactional nature of work and become places where people feel valued and connected.

A concept in practice

Research from Bain & Company shows that improving employee retention – which is often a byproduct of trust and memorable service – has a measurable impact on profit margins.

Companies investing in employee experience also see gains in productivity, engagement, and loyalty. When staff feel supported and recognised on a personal level, they are less likely to leave, reducing costly turnover. For client-facing industries, applying the same hospitality ethos internally reinforces external reputation, strengthening relationships both inside and outside the organisation.

There are already notable examples both in and out of the hospitality industry that have adopted the mindset of unreasonable hospitality. Italian flexible workplace provider Meravili in Milan offers tailored amenities, ergonomic furniture, and green spaces, while house managers provide personalised services from customised meals to celebrating personal milestones.

American shoe and clothing retailer, Zappos is known for extraordinary customer and employee care. The organisation empowers frontline staff to solve problems creatively and surprise customers and colleagues alike with personal gestures, like heartfelt notes or unexpected upgrades.

In workplaces, this translates to practices such as personalised welcome notes for new hires, thoughtfully designed onboarding packages, tailored food and beverage offerings, in-office wellness, and recognising employee life events in meaningful ways rather than generic gestures.

Empowering employees

At its heart, unreasonable hospitality is about trust. It works when employees are empowered to act with initiative – whether that’s an airline attendant offering earplugs to a frazzled parent or a receptionist quietly topping up a guest’s parking meter. These gestures resonate because they are human, not scripted. But they only happen when leadership gives people the autonomy and confidence to deliver.

Of course, there’s a fine line between generosity and overreach. At what point does going above and beyond for your staff become unmanageable? Push too far and you risk burnout, performative gestures, or resentment from those left out. Scale it badly and it becomes unsustainable. Done clumsily, it can feel like one more corporate fad or even an invasion of privacy.

But when done well, unreasonable hospitality doesn’t mean extravagance or huge investment. It means intentional, authentic moments that remind us we’re dealing with people, not headcount.

In an era of AI tools, hybrid schedules and digital dashboards, these small but powerful human touches could be what truly differentiates a workplace. Offices that get this right will transform from places people are encouraged to use into communities they actively want to be part of.