My coworking space is opening in about 10-12 weeks. I will be acting as operations manager, but currently have no other staff hired at the moment. Our building is 2 floors, approximately 10,000 sf with a maximum occupancy around 135 people. What do you consider the most important/necessary staff positions to have filled on DAY 1. Looking for ways to scale hiring.
I would say it partially depends on how many people you have already pre-registered. If you have a bunch, then you might need someone as a concierge up front when people walk in, especially with as large a space as you have and 2 stories. Without knowing your space personally, I’m guessing people will need guidance once they walk in. However if your budget does not allow yet for both an operations manager and a concierge, then the ops mgr (you) will have to play both roles. My cofounder and I have done the latter from day 1, we’re both managers of the space to a degree though he deals more with financials and sales and I focus more on operations/tech/digital marketing. However we’ve gotten to a point where we started to need a concierge up front as soon as people walk in, so I moved my desk up front so I can play concierge when necessary but none of my other responsibilities have changed.
Background: Our space is only 4,000 sq ft and 1 story, so we were able to see people as they walked inside and would come up and greet them (our desks were 1/2 way back in the space so as to observe the entire space and be working more intimately with the members, but increasing membership has required a concierge, so I volunteered to move my desk up to the front). Aside from our intern whom we pay minimum wage, we have not hired extra personnel yet because our rent is just over $3/square foot and is very expensive, we’re just north and across the golden gate bridge from San Francisco, so wages are high here too.
Knowing that you won’t start with 135 members out of the gate, I would recommend sectioning out your building and only “opening” a couple areas at a time. This will up your physical density to improve the energy and make it easier for you to see and help people as they arrive/move in the space. As you add members, you can “unlock” more areas. This approach saves you money b/c you don’t have to furnish the whole thing at once and you can see what people need before you lay everything out.
For Day 1, one person can handle everything until you grow over 5,000 ft2 of active space or over ~100 members. Another veteran and I have discussed that we think about 6,000 sq ft can be managed by 1 full time person. Over that, you’ll need some help.
For context, my space is 3,500 sq feet spread over 5 levels, we have 85 members, about 30 people in and out each day and my staff is managing almost everything in about 20 hrs/ week. I probably log another 5 hours/week for higher level stuff.
Angel
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On Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 6:27:03 AM UTC-7, Liz Boudreau wrote:
My coworking space is opening in about 10-12 weeks. I will be acting as operations manager, but currently have no other staff hired at the moment. Our building is 2 floors, approximately 10,000 sf with a maximum occupancy around 135 people. What do you consider the most important/necessary staff positions to have filled on DAY 1. Looking for ways to scale hiring.
Big +1 for looking at ways to potentially segment your space. In addition to all of the things Angel pointed out (spread costs out over time) it also keeps you from buying things people don’t need/use. Almost every coworking space I’ve worked with has wasted money on things they didn’t need or worse, that end up distracting members/prospective members from the core offerings.
I also agree with Angel on the baseline of 1 person to oversee ~100 people or 10,000 sqft of space (whichever comes first). That’s a baseline though, and there are lots of other variables. We run a 350 person community with 2 full time staff and a small handful of administrative/creative contractors, which is mostly possible because of our approach to community building and how we involve/include staff in that process. I go into depth in this (how we hire, what expectations we set, what it allows for, and how it changes our hiring model completely) in a video inside the 2nd link below.
The rest of my answer depends highly on what YOU expect/want to be doing, and where you think your MOST VALUABLE time is spent? You said operations, but what do you think that entails (and what are you looking to NOT do).
I’ve got a couple of pieces that I’ve recorded specifically around hiring, too!
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Podcast Episode #9 “I Needed Help” https://listen.coworkingweekly.com/446e0ef4
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How to hire the best: https://dangerouslyawesome.com/2018/06/how-to-hire-the-best-people-to-run-your-coworking-space/
Hope this is helpful, good luck getting your space open!
-Alex
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On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 PM Angel Kwiatkowski [email protected] wrote:
Knowing that you won’t start with 135 members out of the gate, I would recommend sectioning out your building and only “opening” a couple areas at a time. This will up your physical density to improve the energy and make it easier for you to see and help people as they arrive/move in the space. As you add members, you can “unlock” more areas. This approach saves you money b/c you don’t have to furnish the whole thing at once and you can see what people need before you lay everything out.
For Day 1, one person can handle everything until you grow over 5,000 ft2 of active space or over ~100 members. Another veteran and I have discussed that we think about 6,000 sq ft can be managed by 1 full time person. Over that, you’ll need some help.
For context, my space is 3,500 sq feet spread over 5 levels, we have 85 members, about 30 people in and out each day and my staff is managing almost everything in about 20 hrs/ week. I probably log another 5 hours/week for higher level stuff.
Angel
On Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 6:27:03 AM UTC-7, Liz Boudreau wrote:
My coworking space is opening in about 10-12 weeks. I will be acting as operations manager, but currently have no other staff hired at the moment. Our building is 2 floors, approximately 10,000 sf with a maximum occupancy around 135 people. What do you consider the most important/necessary staff positions to have filled on DAY 1. Looking for ways to scale hiring.
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