How to reduce community manager turnover and keep your workspace humming

Jade Mauldin, Director of Community at Common Desk

One of the biggest challenges coworking space operators face is high employee turnover, especially when it comes to community managers. The reason for high attrition is often not about money, or lack of it. It’s about burnout. But thankfully there is an antidote to burnout and that’s to establish a great culture for your employees, with a sharp focus on community managers. 

Without doubt, community managers are the linchpin of coworking businesses and are fundamental to their success. They are usually the first person to greet members, the initial point of contact for enquiries and pretty much always the go-to when problems arise. They are the anchor, not just for your workspace, but for the people who use it. No wonder burnout is rife, especially when there’s so much to juggle, so many people to please and the pressures become overwhelming. 

But, it doesn’t need to be this way. Operators that instill a people culture at the heart of their business, from recruitment upwards, are able to create strong and even loyal working relationships with their employees. It begins by prioritizing health and well-being, showing your people that you understand the fundamentals of boosting morale and motivation. But to be a truly successful employer and nurture an amazing company culture, you need to go much deeper than that. 

How can you establish a strong company culture and reduce burnout? 

Operators must demonstrate to employees that while the business needs to grow and be profitable, you know that without great people that can’t happen. It’s about establishing a framework that clearly defines goals, roles, responsibilities and expectations within which your people can work, without micromanaging or undermining. It’s about consistent and effective communication that aligns the values and needs of the business with the values and needs of your people. 

Your ability to align these two things is the reason why the role of community manager is one of the hardest to recruit for and one of the most detrimental to lose, and it begins even before the recruitment process. It begins with your vision to create a great place to work. 

There are some great examples of operators who are creating hugely positive workplace environments and leading the way in showing how a great culture can lead to long term employee loyalty and commitment. 

In fact, there’s even one team of employees that felt so strongly about their company’s mission that a group of them even got tattoos to show their commitment. The tattoo says ‘Daymaker’ because making their members’ day is not only part of their company mission, but they have adopted it as a personal mission as well, no matter where they work. 

Sound familiar? 

One of the leading operators that put culture front and center is Common Desk. 

 “Common Desk’s mission is to make days better by creating thoughtful moments, human connections, and a sense of belonging — for all. 

We pride ourselves in having a staff and member culture who make every day at our shared offices noteworthy.”

Common Desk has become a leader, not only as a successful coworking operator but as an employer. They have been the winners of several top workplace awards and have a tribe of incredibly, happy and loyal employees to prove it.

Our very own William Edmundson, had the privilege of speaking with Common Desk’s Director of Community, Jade Mauldin to learn more about how they are creating an awesome company culture, the impact it’s having on the business and what others can learn from their example. 

WE: What are the key things that create a good culture in a coworking environment?

JM: A good culture is built on a foundation of trust and respect, communication and support, where employees feel empowered, valued and motivated to contribute their best. I think the more obvious answer would be to have clear values and mission with the right leaders in place and to lead by example, because a great leader will have influence that others would love to follow and be excited to follow.

But something that I think maybe should be more obvious today, but I've learned, does not exist everywhere is open communication or an ‘open door policy’ because encouraging open and transparent communication at all levels of the organization promotes trust, collaboration, and engagement and employees should feel comfortable sharing without fear of retribution. 

WE: So, what do you look for when you're recruiting? So many operators have high turnover? And I think a lot of ties into the fact that they’re not thinking about the right things when recruiting. What do you look for?

JM: There are 3 things actually, that I go into every interview with now and that is energy, intelligence and integrity. They are all things you can feel pretty immediately. 

Energy is the more obvious one but if you're having to tone it down a bit, then they're probably not gonna make it at Common Desk. We need camp leader energy whenever we're coming into the interview so someone with big smiles, lots of energy and if they don't pass that test, then it’s an easy no. And then you can gauge their intelligence and integrity just through the conversation.

WE: Can you share a little bit about how you empower your employees?

JM: I would say that empowering employees is a cornerstone of my leadership approach, and I truly believe in fostering an environment where my people, these splendid individuals, feel valued and trusted and capable of making meaningful contributions, to both, our immediate goals and our sustainable long-term vision. 

Two things that I think can be used by any organization are collaboration and feedback, and then, obviously setting clear expectations. We foster a culture of collaboration and feedback, where employees feel very comfortable sharing ideas and concerns. This kind of alludes to what I was talking about earlier with the open door policy. I actually think that one of the main reasons that it is not normal everywhere is because to have a real open door policy there's that fine line between professionalism and open communication that can be tricky. But that's where the setting clear expectations part kinda comes in and does its thing. We overcome this by doing regular check-ins, team meetings and performance evaluations regularly to provide opportunities for that open dialogue and mutual learning which is really embedded in our culture.

Two values, specific to Common Desk that I’ll talk about are ‘Developing others’ and we define that ‘Invoking leadership by listening, encouraging, and empowering others to be the best versions of themselves, knowing that success comes when we work together as a whole’.

The second value is around empowerment and we do that by having a blast, because we celebrate and enjoy ourselves, and realize that there is more to life than just what we do at work, which, if you ask me, having fun and promoting fun is a great motivator to feel that sense of empowerment and the desire to do things for yourself.