It’s nearly midnight, and your best front desk agent is running on fumes. She’s trained, she’s talented, and she’s one difficult guest interaction away from updating her résumé. She doesn’t need another script. She needs to remember that she matters.
In the wake of COVID, service industries didn’t just face staffing shortages—they experienced a deeper loss of connection, energy, and engagement. Hospitality turnover continues to hover between 70 and 80% annually, and many organizations are still responding the same way: with more training manuals, tighter standards, and increased pressure to perform.
But something isn’t working.
Worth at Work: An Inside-Out Approach to Confident Teams and Exceptional Service takes a fundamentally different approach. Drawing on decades of experience in transformation, counseling, and leadership development, Randy Haveson and Kat Nisson make the case that sustainable service excellence starts with one thing most organizations overlook entirely: the internal experience of the people who deliver the service.
While rooted in hospitality, the message extends to any service-oriented role—transportation, healthcare, retail, customer experience—anywhere people are expected to show up, stay present, and serve others in high-demand environments. Because today, service is no longer just about what you do. It’s about how you show up while providing service.
This book gives frontline professionals and their leaders a practical, step-by-step framework for building authentic confidence from the inside out, starting with the internal voice that shapes every interaction and the personal energy that makes or breaks a shift. It shows organizations how to create the conditions where that confidence flourishes: psychological safety, empowering leadership, and a culture that develops people rather than depleting them.
Worth at Work is for every service professional who has ever felt like a robot, every leader who knows their team is capable of more, and every organization tired of watching its best people walk out the door. The result is a book that’s equal parts practical guide, leadership playbook, and wake-up call for any industry that depends on people serving people—and needs a better way forward.
Randy Haveson has spent his career building toward one idea. People are at their best, at work and in their relationships, when they know they matter. It's the foundation of WORTH@WORK, where he helps service organizations, from hospitality to customer service, move past burnout and turnover to a place of value and internal worth. His own path gave him a rare understanding of what service work asks of people. He trained as a counselor, earned more than 500 guest compliments as a greeter at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort, and on one of his campuses, was recognized for building one of the most effective university health education programs in the country.He's a TEDx speaker and the author of Party with a Plan and Becoming Your Own BFF. His work has reached audiences on CNN, Fox News, and campuses including Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, and Brown. For Randy, this is personal. He's been in recovery for more than 40 years and discovering his own worth is where the work began. With Kat Nisson, he co-wrote Worth at Work for the person who cares deeply about everyone else but tends to neglect themselves, who magnifies every mistake and brushes off every win. He wants them to see what he once had to learn himself. Their worth has been there all along.
For over two decades, Kat Nisson worked in public service, leading teams and serving communities through libraries and nonprofits. She knows what frontline work asks of people, and she knows what it quietly costs them. That experience sits underneath everything in Worth at Work.She has spent years as a ghostwriter, helping other authors shape nonfiction books on everything from narrative cookbooks to mental health and autism resources. Worth at Work is the first time her own name is on the cover, and she's glad it landed on this one.As the VP of Everything at Worth@Work, Kat works alongside Randy Haveson to bring his self-worth philosophy into real workplaces. Most of what she does happens behind the scenes: building the systems, scripts, and frameworks that bring exceptional service and humanity together. She holds a Master's in Library and Information Science and is a Certified Professional Career Coach credentialed through PARWCC. The people she cares about most are the ones doing hard, public-facing work who deserve to feel that they matter.
