Sudoku Means Business

• Sharlyn Lauby


• 8 Aug 2008

Thank you to William U at Talent Alchemy for Tweeting this story.

It seems that Westin Hotels has created Sudoku Sanctuaries at four of their Europe locations.  These Sanctuaries will allow people to ‘boost their mental energy’ by taking five to solve a Sudoku puzzle.  Or in my case ‘taking fifteen or twenty.’

Obviously, this decision must have been given careful consideration by Westin executives.  And, I assume market research was done to determine that Sudoku is the puzzle of choice for Westin guests.

That being said, I wonder what the hotel chain is to people who do the NY Times Crossword?  I guess it’s not the same as the folks who do Word Search puzzles.

And, how does this new offering transfer over to the recruiting process?  Wouldn’t Westin employees need to know what Sudoku is and possibly have even finished a puzzle or two before speaking to guests about the Sanctuary?  It could be fun to be the training manager at one of these locations – designing a “Sudoku 101” section for Orientation.

We’re always looking for some way to bring play into to work . . . and we don’t all have fish we can throw at each other.  I think Westin figured it out.

0