We have one of the most unique office spaces of any hospitality business. Our entire office -- which houses 5 full-time and 3 part-time team members -- is directly behind our front desk. We have created a little visual separation from the lobby area with some bookshelves and funky orange curtains. For the most part, though, you can see our whole office from the lobby, and we can all see the lobby from our desks. It's the equivalent of a "show kitchen" in a restaurant, where you can witness the good, bad, and ugly of your food being prepared.

We intentionally designed our office this way because we want our guests to have full access to our staff without having to search for someone or being forced to wait at the front desk during the times our front desk is not manned. Plus, it forces us to keep our office very, very clean and organized.

Even with this great idea for how the office is designed, we discovered a flaw in the way we had our desks arranged. Basically, we figured out that the wrong people were the most visible to our guests, and vice-versa. Our two front-line staff members, our Director of Guest Happiness (reservations mgr) and our Director of Lasting Impressions (operations mgr), were effectively hidden from view. So we took about an hour and swapped almost everyone's seat in the office so these two would be the most visible to the guests and could respond even more effectively to their needs and requests (mainly because now they can see 'em coming).

Why this is one of our favorite sparks:
This was one of the classic cases of asking ourselves, "Why are we doing it this way? Wouldn't it work better if...?" When you ask these kinds of questions, then act on them, they always seem to make a huge impact very quickly.


Have you ever asked yourself these questions? What happened? Tell us about it! Leave a comment today!