Hospitality is also how we treat the people we pay

We often talk about hospitality from the perspective of the customer.

We think about how someone is welcomed, how comfortable they feel, whether the communication is clear, whether the space is pleasant, whether their needs are anticipated and whether the experience feels thoughtful.

All of that matters. But I believe it is only part of the conversation.

There is another side of hospitality that interests me just as much, perhaps even more, because it tends to reveal what happens when there is no performance involved: the way we treat the people who provide services to us.

The freelancer waiting for feedback. The supplier trying to clarify an order. The technician entering our home. The cleaner working quietly while everyone else continues with their day. The photographer arriving for a project. The consultant whose proposal we decide not to accept. The person behind an email when something goes wrong.

These interactions may not be the first examples that come to mind when we think about hospitality, but they tell us a great deal about the quality of a person, a business and a culture.

Paying someone creates a commercial relationship. It does not remove the human one.

When we hire someone, we are paying for their time, expertise, labour or a specific outcome. We are not purchasing the right to dismiss their time, speak to them without consideration, humiliate them when something goes wrong or behave as though being the client automatically makes our time more valuable than theirs.

This may sound obvious, but in practice, it is not.

There is a strange permission that sometimes appears in commercial relationships, as if payment quietly changes the rules of civility. Delays become acceptable when they are ours. Poor communication becomes someone else’s problem. A lack of response is justified because we are busy. A harsh tone is reframed as “high standards.” Someone’s availability is treated as unlimited simply because an invoice exists.

I do not think this is a small behavioral issue. I think it says something much deeper about how we understand power.

And this is precisely why I see hospitality as something far larger than customer service.

Hospitality, to me, is the design of feeling. It is the conscious consideration of how another person experiences a space, a process, a conversation, a decision or our presence.

If we accept that definition, then hospitality cannot reasonably be reserved only for clients.

A supplier has an experience of our business. A freelancer has an experience of our leadership. A contractor has an experience of our communication. A candidate has an experience of our culture. Even someone whose proposal we reject has an experience of the way we receive, respond and close a relationship.

Every one of these interactions creates an atmosphere.

Sometimes that atmosphere communicates clarity, respect and trust. Sometimes it communicates indifference, superiority, confusion or disregard. Whether we intended to create it or not does not change the fact that it exists.

This is also why I find the backstage of a business so revealing.

Companies spend a great deal of time designing what customers see. They invest in branding, reception spaces, websites, service standards, customer journeys, packaging, events and tone of voice. They carefully shape the visible experience.

But culture often becomes clearest in the moments that no customer will ever witness.

It is visible in the email sent to a supplier. In whether someone receives an answer after submitting work. In how a payment delay is communicated. In whether meetings begin on time. In how scope changes are handled. In how a mistake is discussed. In the difference between the tone used with an executive and the tone used with someone performing a less prestigious role.

Those moments may never appear in a campaign, but they are still part of the brand.

In fact, I would argue that they are some of the most honest parts of it.

Because hospitality is easy to perform when there is a clear reputational reward.

We know how to prepare for the important client. We pay attention when someone influential is in the room. We become more thoughtful when the relationship matters to us or when there is something obvious to gain.

The more interesting question is what happens when there is no advantage attached to our kindness.

How do we behave with someone we do not need to impress?

How do we communicate with a professional whose proposal we have decided not to accept?

How much consideration do we offer when we believe we are in the stronger position?

These moments reveal whether hospitality is a performance or a value.

Of course, none of this means abandoning standards.

Respect is not the same as permissiveness. Hospitality is not endless accommodation. It does not mean accepting poor work, avoiding difficult conversations or becoming incapable of saying no.

I actually believe clarity is one of the most important forms of care.

You can hold someone accountable and remain respectful. You can negotiate firmly without becoming demeaning. You can express dissatisfaction without attacking someone personally. You can decide not to continue a professional relationship and still communicate that decision with consideration.

High standards and humane behavior are not opposites. In many cases, the most sophisticated form of hospitality is precisely the ability to combine both.

This matters beyond individual interactions because the way a business treats service providers eventually becomes part of its culture, and culture rarely stays hidden forever.

People talk. They remember how they were treated. They choose whether they want to work with you again. They decide whether they trust you, recommend you or avoid you. A business may think of suppliers and contractors as external to the brand, but from an experiential perspective, they are already inside it.

They have felt it.

And this, to me, is one of the central ideas behind hospitality as the design of feeling.

If we only design the experience of the customer, we are not designing hospitality. We are designing a front stage.

True hospitality asks a broader question: what kind of experience do we create for the people who come into contact with us, even when they are not the ones buying?

That question applies to companies, but also to us personally.

The way we speak to a waiter, a cleaner, a driver, a technician or someone who is working for us says something about the atmosphere we create around ourselves.

Not because every interaction needs to be extraordinary. It does not.

But every interaction carries information.

It communicates how we understand respect, power, time, dignity and presence.

For me, this is where hospitality becomes much more than a sector, a service or a set of gestures. It becomes a way of relating.

And perhaps one of the clearest tests of hospitality is not how beautifully we treat the people we want to impress, but how naturally we offer consideration to the people we believe we do not have to.

Because payment may define the transaction.

It should never define the value of the person inside it.