Ever since the outbreak of COVID19, there have been unpreventable and noticeable changes within society in the last two years. Many of these changes have blurred the lines and boundaries between a person’s personal and professional life.
Caterina Maiolini, who is the Community and Partnerships Manager of SALTO systems provides insight into these changes occurring in the coworking community. Elena Giroli, who is the Change and Communications Manager of Creative Works, will also be providing insight into how they have been managing these changes and shifts.
An unhealthy change
As the pandemic has continued throughout the past few years, Community Managers have been seeing a lot of change in their members. As it was no longer seen as safe to work within an office space, many employees were under government mandate to work from home, however, it soon became the case that if you cannot work from home, find somewhere else to work. For those who live in London, this proved to be a difficult change as many live in small restricted spaces.
This brought on an additional challenge, as the protocol had blurred the lines between personal and professional lives. Many employees found themselves to be constantly working within their confined spaces and could not separate the two to create a healthy work-life balance.
Coping with the pandemic
As this new change proved to be a disadvantage to many employees, Coworking space Managers had to adapt and restructure their offers. This was no easy task and it underwent procedures of trial-and-error.
With these procedures, there was an entire onboarding process that required things to be added and taken away. This was also a time to see how people reacted to these new alterations, as consumer satisfaction and expectations are always the main focus of a business.
Community Managers expectations from their members
Community Managers in coworking spaces do not have a specific framework for their members. The main expectation that Community Managers do have is for anyone entering the space to remain respectful of the space’s ideals of community, openness, and all beliefs and sexualities.
In this case, it is a matter of a person’s personality and attitude. A Community Manager must determine if a member wants to get to know other members of the community by talking to them. Additionally, Members should be open and willing to adhere to the guidelines of the space highlighted by an existing code of conduct that states the expectations of a member’s behaviour in the coworking space.