Everyone who is working in a coworking space must work efficiently and creatively. Some roles include managing the operations, helping the community to flourish, and establishing the name of the business. The employees play a vital role in the overall management of a workspace.
The size of how many employees to hire varies upon the size and the level of activity within a workspace. If there are more members, it requires more attention and demands. Hiring the right team can make all the difference and take your business to the next level.
Things to Consider in Hiring your Staff
Attitude Over Experience
Coworking is an industry that generally chooses attitude over experiences in terms of hiring and building staff. It is because understanding customer services, community and providing members involves a personal degree of service. This isn’t just about the employer-employee relationship, but it’s all about building a lasting and thriving relationship with members.
Build a Team
To build a good quality team, it must be well-decided since its a factor that affects the overall productivity of a workspace. In large companies, employee turnover has little impact on their profit margin and overall sustainability. Unlike with coworking space, cost-efficiency has a role to play, but it’s more important to make a smart hire than a decision that is based on financial limitations.
Budget Allocation
There are two ways to allocate budget for staffing. First, it will be better if you have an idea into what other spaces are willing to pay to fill the position you’re seeking. Second, as a rule of thumb, a good Coworking space should dedicate 25%-30% of its expenses toward human capital. In understanding the demand of members and the available resources, informed decisions can be made as to when it’s time to hire new workers.
Best Practices for Hiring
Hiring can be done in these ways:
- Posting Online
This can bring quick results depending on which avenue you use, such as LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Facebook and other platforms Indeed as they have an emphasis on highlighting the skillsets of an applicant. - Outsourcing to a Staffing Agency
This is not highly recommended since it needs to pay extra for the company to manage the employee and at the same time making critical decisions to the group that is not suited for your brand in mind. - Existing Employees
Reaching out to existing employees will help you know someone with a similar work ethic and skillset who can represent the culture of the workspace.
Managing Your Staff
If you have a highly motivated staff that is geared toward growing your coworking space, the best strategy is to improve their efficiency and productivity. Through a workspace management platform, a lesser trained staff member can handle tasks at the same quality as a more-qualified, higher-paid employee can. This saves time while empowering your staff to be resourceful with their time and resources.
With the help of a trusted Coworking Management Software you can optimize your staff’s time through the following services:
- Automated Billing
It saves on hours instead of doing transactions manually. - Automated Member Management Features
It saves your staff from manually assigning access to certain areas, generating PINS and confirmations, manually creating and filing terms and conditions, and manually follow up on renewing members. - Integration with One Platform
The workspace management platform will automatically sync your membership information and perks with all other aspects of the workspace. Using this method, you can add new members through a process in just a few minutes.To have the best performance, setting up automation through workspace management platform is advisable because it helps you to save time and money specifically on able to serve your community better.
Maximizing your Staff’s time
The space owner must find ways to make most of the time of the staff. An initial step on this is to observe of how much time your staff is spending on busy work, so you may know which of the task can be automated. It is instrumental for growth to work with the staff in knowing the sources of revenue, so you will know where to make necessary changes in the operations.
Two practical ways to maximize the time of your staff:
Keep Your Staff Happy and Engaged
A coworking space that is geared towards building community, the staff must be part of the community as well. Collaboration and connectivity are shared equally among the staff and with the community as well. Your staff must embrace the brand philosophy so that they can be well- engaged with the community.
Geared towards Growth
Business owners must aspire to maximize productivity, and in doing this, there must be a balance between focusing efforts towards maintaining the space and attracting new members. You need to make sure you’re not working on just one aspect and not the other. An example of this, if your marketing is on point, but your internet isn’t connected well, then surely the members won’t last a month. Therefore, it’s critical to maintain a balance between sales, marketing, and service.
Also, train the staff to have more room in expanding service revenue. A coworking space may have other demands such as food, coffee, office supplies, and leisure activities. For a member, instead of going somewhere else, you can meet these demands by preparing the staff knows how to handle such situations.
Conclusion
Coworking spaces across the country are applying unique and original ideas to maximize their service revenue. Your staff can be highly involved in all the activities to uphold the brand philosophy of the coworking space. Through a Workspace Management Platform, your staff can easily upsell services to the members. You can entrust your staff not just with the survival of the space, but the livelihood of the community as well.