How to Hire a Great Team for Your Coworking Space

Hiring a team for your coworking space is hard, and hiring a great team is harder still. Team expansion usually follows from expanding your coworking business, and it often happens alongside creating new operational processes.

Hiring for a coworking space means recruiting a small, cross-skilled team, usually starting with a community manager, that can run daily operations, build member community, and sell memberships, then adding operations, finance, events, and HR roles as you scale.

You might wonder what makes the hiring process work, how to build a team that performs, or which roles to fill first when you expand. We asked Iris Kavanagh, an industry expert with years of experience hiring for coworking spaces. Below is a recap of our video conversation, with a link to the recording.

Iris Kavanagh works with shared workspace organizations to streamline operations and develop communities. She fell in love with coworking as a member of NextSpace Santa Cruz in 2009, when she saw the power of real, in-person community and started thinking of ways to change the world through the coworking model.

Iris led the NextSpace team during its initial expansion from 1 location to 9, co-founded various industry groups, produced Freelance Camps, and has spoken at industry conferences.

She consults, co-leads the Global Alliance of Women Who Cowork and features industry and movement leaders through her media series, Coworking with Iris.

Iris Kavanagh, Consultant, Co-Founder of Global Alliance of Women Who Cowork, Founder of Coworking with Iris

What makes the hiring process successful?

On the hiring essentials, Iris says you should give yourself at least 3 to 8 weeks to hire and fill a position. It takes time to source a good candidate and for that candidate to become available to join your team.

Know how your process runs: how many interviews you conduct, what questions you ask, what steps you follow. The process Iris uses includes these steps.

Writing a detailed job description

The job description is dry and business-oriented, but its job is to give a clear picture of the position, its responsibilities, and who the person reports to. Keep it tight. A job description of around 600 words or fewer, with clear sections for the role, key responsibilities, and required skills, is easier to read and answer.

Writing a job ad

The ad conveys your company’s culture and values and makes the candidate want the job.

Include a cover letter and a few extra questions along with the skills and main responsibilities. That filters candidates and shows whether they’re detail-oriented and can follow instructions.

Put the salary range you’re ready to offer in the ad. Going through the whole process only to find out you’re not on the same page wastes time for both sides.

Posting the ad

Knowing where to post matters for reach. General job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, and ZipRecruiter usually bring quick results, and applicant tracking tools like JobScore let you keep candidates, correspondence, and notes in one place. Coworking-specific boards such as Coworkies also help you reach people who already understand the industry.

Conducting a series of interviews

Iris runs 4 or 5 interviews, starting with a phone call and followed by a few in-person meetings. The number depends on the brand, the culture, and the size of the team.

The process always ends with a trial day at the space, which lets you see the person in action. It also gives the candidate a clearer sense of the job and the responsibilities.

Some people don’t come across well in the initial interview, often because they’re nervous, but on their trial day they shine and convince you they’re the right person.

During those trial days, Iris gives the candidate various tasks to see how they approach them, what their mindset is, and whether they’ll get along with the team.

*find out what tasks Iris gives to candidates in the video at the end of this blog post 🙂

Being consistent in the questions you ask

In the US especially, this matters legally, because it gives every candidate equal footing. Asking the same questions also helps you, since it lets you compare applicants accurately.

Ask questions that reveal whether the candidate researched the company or the industry. If they put in the effort, it shows they care, they’ll take initiative, and they want to learn more, all good signs.

Hiring people who care about the coworking movement pays off. ‘It’s not about my space, but about coworking as a movement. I want to hire people that are passionate about that,’ Iris says.

To wrap up the process, Iris gives 5 pieces of advice:

• Have yourself prepared
• Stick to your plan
• Listen to your gut
• Keep an open mind
• Think about the professional and life experience the candidate has

What skills should you look for?

A good mix of professional and personal skills is a must.

Candidates with the right combination of hard skills and soft skills match their skillset to what the company needs, the so-called value proposition.

On personality: people who are happy, curious, intuitive, and diligent fit coworking spaces well. Time management and problem solving matter too.

Operational roles need big-picture thinkers with an eye for detail. They should be highly organized, able to work through tasks methodically, and good with people.

Community people should be highly engaging, warm, and welcoming, with the ability to set boundaries. They should lead through inspiration and know how to communicate in both pleasant and uncomfortable situations. Many strong community hires come from hospitality or service backgrounds, where reading people and handling a busy front of house is second nature.

Crossover skills matter, so someone can always run the space when a teammate is sick or on vacation.

One more skill worth screening for now: comfort with software. Your team will run bookings, billing, member communication, and reporting through a coworking management platform, so tech-savviness belongs on the job description, not the nice-to-have list.

Why does culture fit matter?

Culture fit matters because your community has its own culture, and that culture is usually set by the inner vibe of the team itself.

To find a good culture fit, know yourself first:

• Work out who you are and what determines your community culture
• Know your members: what’s their vibe, and what makes them feel good?
• Know your brand: are you casual, professional, hi-tech, or art?

Once you answer those questions, you’ll know the kind of people you want on your team. A word of caution from operators who hire a lot: liking a candidate is not the same as the role being right for them, or them being right for the business. Screen for the job, not just the rapport.

How do you build a team that performs when scaling?

With a scaling business and a growing team, it pays to develop an internal methodology.

First, make sure your onboarding and HR processes are smooth. People should know when they get paid, what their schedule is, what benefits they get, and how to request vacation.

Set expectations around who’s responsible to whom and for what. Define those expectations from the start and write them down. Unclear ownership is one of the most common complaints operators hear from their teams: no one knows who handles the sales inquiry, who cleans the meeting room, or who makes the coffee.

Train everybody on the team, consistently. Whether one person runs the training or you follow the same manual, make sure everyone gets the exact same information.

Keep regular communication with each team member. Iris recommends short 1-on-1 meetings (10 to 15 minutes) weekly or bi-weekly with each employee, so you know what’s going on with the team.

Make sure each person can do what they’re good at. When you spot a special skill, give the person the chance to use it in their work and encourage them.

Have a regular review process. An evaluation keeps you and your employee pointed in the right direction. Every 3 to 6 months is a good cadence.

Give people enough time to learn. It can take up to 6 months for a new employee to reach real competence across most of their job. Tell the person you don’t expect them to know everything right away, but you do expect them to keep advancing.

Document your processes. Keep guidelines that spell out what to do in specific situations, who to ask for what, and which communication tool to use when. Clear documentation lets your team run more efficiently and cuts onboarding time for the next hire.

Which roles should you hire first when scaling?

The community manager is almost always the first hire. If you’re adding more than one role at once, an operations manager or community associate is the common next step, with a clear split of duties between them.

Consider hiring team members to handle memberships, admin, or events, especially if you run plenty of events and they’re a meaningful revenue stream.

According to Iris, once you start expanding, a finance person becomes a must. If there isn’t enough work for a full-timer, hire a part-time specialist to take some of the operational load.

The more you expand and the more your team grows, the more you’ll need someone to manage HR. Look at every role and process, decide what you need to handle internally, and decide what you can outsource.

How can a coworking company look after its staff?

Coworking roles are busy and demanding, and burnout is a real risk. Taking good care of your team and helping them feel good at work is essential.

Appreciate them

“Tell your employees constantly how much you appreciate them and that without them you wouldn’t have a successful business. Because that’s the truth at the end of the day.”

Encourage them to take breaks

If teammates worked late for an event, give them the next morning off. Encourage them to use their vacation time.

Model good self-care too. By setting the example, you encourage your team to do the same.

Make them feel connected

People need to feel they belong.

“Allow their personal lives to be part of their work. If they have a dog, let them bring their dog to work. Make sure that the company is welcoming to family members of your staff. Encourage your team to build connections with the community. At the end of the day, that’s what the coworking business is about.”

Support them professionally and personally

Provide coaching and self-development. Support not just their professional skills but their personal interests and hobbies. Hobbies help productivity and develop the person.

Guide them in setting clear expectations for themselves

Help them manage expectations about their to-do list.

“Honestly, your to-do list in coworking is never going to be cleared. I came into this industry expecting to have my to-do list cleared at the end of the day, and it made me hugely anxious to leave work every day and I had to learn how to manage that expectation for myself,” Iris says.

Let your people know you don’t expect every task done, but you do expect them to prioritize, learn, and adapt.

Give them the tools to do the work

A big part of looking after your team is taking repetitive admin off their plate so they can spend time on members. OfficeRnD Flex is coworking management software that automates member onboarding, bookings, and billing so your team can focus on community instead of paperwork. Its AI Hub adds an AI Sales Agent that answers inbound inquiries from web forms and shared inboxes within seconds, qualifies leads, and hands them off, which takes weekend and after-hours lead chasing off your community manager’s shoulders.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the first person you should hire for a coworking space?

A community manager. They’re the first point of contact for members, they run daily operations, and they sell and retain memberships. If you’re hiring two people at once, pair them with an operations manager or community associate and split the duties clearly.

How long does it take to hire for a coworking space?

Plan for at least 3 to 8 weeks to source, interview, and fill a role, and remember a strong candidate may need to work out notice before they can start.

What does a coworking community manager do?

They combine hospitality, operations, and community building: greeting and onboarding members, running events, handling bookings and day-to-day issues, and often supporting sales and marketing. Many operators break the role into four competencies: community building, operations, sales and marketing, and leadership.

What skills should a coworking hire have?

A blend of people skills (empathy, communication, adaptability) and practical skills (operations, event logistics, and comfort with coworking software and CRM tools). A hospitality or service background is a strong signal.

Should you put the salary in the job ad?

Yes. Listing a salary range up front saves both sides from running a full process only to discover you’re not aligned on pay.

Watch the recording:

As promised, here’s a link to access the video recording from our webinar ‘Hiring & Building Teams for Scaling Coworking Spaces’ with Iris Kavanagh.

Enjoy it!

P.S. If you want to share ideas on topics you’d like to read more about, drop us a line at [email protected], we’d love to hear your thoughts!