I am new to coworking and have been hired as a Community Manager of a brand new coworking space. As a part of my contract the owners of the space specified that a structured bonus plan would be a part of the compensation. It was outlined that I would be a part of the creation process of this structure as I am the first CM of this space.
The manager that I report to has since put this on ‘hold’ and there has been no bonus structure or plan created, although I bring it up every few weeks to discuss.
I have set up a meeting for next week, which marks the end of my 3 month ‘probationary’ period and have reiterated that there needs to be a plan in place by this time.
I am looking for some information on what is a reasonable bonus plan. Although I am not experienced in coworking I have over 10 years of management experience in high volume sales positions and fast paced environments. Any ideas of what a coworking bonus plan would look like would be helpful. I have been told it will be based on Leads, Memebrships, Events and Tours and that is all. Ideally I wanted to write one myself but there aren’t expamples online!
As someone who owns and runs a coworking space, and who advises lots of other folks on how to incentivize their employees, I usually put things like lead and sales based commissions at the BOTTOM of the list. Sales/lead based incentives create a situation where you’re motivated to put butts in seats rather than curate and develop community, which can require telling people that your community isn’t the best fit for them.
Honestly, it’s tough to suggest specific ideas without knowing more about you, the owners, or the community. I’d be looking for things that align YOUR goals (personally and professionally) with the OPERATORS goals (financial and impact) with the COMMUNITY’S goals. There isn’t a single formula for this because it depends so much on the composition of the community and the founders/owners. I talked a bit about this in video, around 17:50. https://vimeo.com/256427179
What exactly did you sign up to do? “Community Management” is a notoriously broad role. What were the priorities in the job description? What are the manager’s priorities? How well have you gotten to know people in the community over the last 3 months - do you have a sense of what they want out of their coworking experience?
In all aspects, I’d be asking: what does success look like? Is it simply butts in seats, or offices filled? Does anyone care who is in those seats? Do the owners care if people sign up…or if they stay? Is there any objective or mission towards impacting members, their businesses, or the local economy?
And, I’ll add that if YOU are the one answering these questions for the owners/founders/managers…I’d count that as a red flag and either ask about a promotion into management yourself or find a new coworking space run by professionals
I’m sure this isn’t as concrete of an answer as you were hoping for, but I hope it helps frame the answers you should be looking for a little better!
Adding onto Alex’s comments, I have found over the years that metrics like occupancy (or sales targets) are less meaningful to the long term success of the business than member retention and member happiness.
We track how long our members stay with us on average, and try to find commonalities between those members to best identify the companies that would be a good fit to us.
We also use asknice.ly to do a member NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey, and that allows us to track how members feel about the space, plus provide valuable feedback that can be actioned.
My space is family run, so we don’t have employees, but if I did I would use member retention and NPS scores to incentivise performance above sales targets.
Thank you both so much for your answers! This is really sound advice and I have a lot to think about. My meeting is on Thursday, and I will send an update with how things went.
