How IndyHall got the best office manager, without hiring an office manager
Filed under: coworking, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, IndyHall U
Posted first to the Coworking Google Group, mostly copied here for sharing/recordkeeping.
The question was in response to something rather timely, as we’ve been discussing the issue quite a bit recently.
I wanted to talk about the issue of hiring a space manager from our experience in the last 2 years.
We took a fairly holistic coworking approach to bringing on someone to help me run IndyHall day to day, and here’s how and why.
Dana, our office manager, came on a year ago as an assistant to me, with the job of taking administrative tasks away from me as she saw fit, and finding ways to improve things around the office. That meant I paid her (and still do) a portion of her income out of my pocket, as she helps me…be effective at being me.
At the same time, rather than employ her, we brought her on as a contractor to help administrate IndyHall.
This was important for two reasons:
1) it helped us keep our overhead low
2) it gave us the opportunity to cultivate another successful independent as a part of the IndyHall community
Dana knew that IndyHall could only afford to pay her a certain amount per month. Having a desk to work from is an obvious perk, but a perk nonetheless.
Most importantly, the rest of the time, she needed to find other things to do to make ends meet. Most of you haven’t met her, but Dana is exactly who you’d want to be greeting you when walking into …well, anywhere. She’s smart, friendly, outgoing. She’s the perfect person to have at the other end of the phone lines, email, or on the other side of the desk.
She also had a wealth of skill-sets and mentor-ship at her fingertips in the IndyHall community, a resource that someone with a little gumption and focus can do some real damage with.
And she has.
Rather than be cornered into an admin job, Dana took advantage of the fact that her skills also make her an awesome candidate for doing support work alongside the other talent in the room. She took on the role of doing email support for one of the products born at IndyHall, RipIt. Since then, she’s grown that role to supporting 4 products (including RipIt, Beanstalk, Freckle Time Tracking, and another that I don’t even know anything about) which is now consuming the majority of her time and she’s looking at ways to grow and scale that business of providing affordable customer support to indie products.
What does that mean for IndyHall, now that she’s dedicating more time to her own ventures?
Well, for one, it means we succeeded in cultivating a successful independent (some would say that I’ve ruined her for any “real” job. i consider that a success as well). Not only that, but along the way Dana has single handedly contributed to a sizable chunk of our growth in the last year, by not just being a “desk admin” but someone who makes it part of her job to make sure people in the office are happy. Things like cupcake Thursdays. And that awesome mural many of you have seen in pictures of our old space, was painted by her. And comic relief, of course.
Furthermore, she helped me get my life back, because I was dedicating all of my personal time to running IndyHall AND my own consulting business. Now, I focus on vision and strategy and leadership for IndyHall, and less on the management of it.
But she’s growing this support business. So now what?
With her able to dedicate 20% or less of her time to the office, our admin needs an admin.
So the cycle repeats itself. We’re about to start looking for an intern to repeat the cycle we’ve gone through with Dana in the last year. We’re splitting Dana’s role into two, a general manager and an admin. The best part? Dana figured this out on her own. She split up the role like this:
Indy Hall Administrator - 8:30a – 5:00p Monday – Friday
Responsibilities would include:
- opening the space every morning
- being available at the front during the day to answer any questions
- give tours of the space
- in charge of reservations
- keep daily attendance records
- daily invoicing for drop ins
Indy Hall General Manager- 5-10 hours a week
- monthly invoices
- membership management
- planning events (show and tell, 2 hr. workshops, etc)
- contact form emails
- general management of things that need to be done / improvements to IH
- cupcakes on Thursdays 
The plan would be for the admin to report to her, and in time, have the admin become the GM as Dana continues to grow her support business.
And then the cycle continues.
Geoff and I are really excited about this process and how it has worked out, and think it’s great for the long term sustainability of the management of the space. It lets me focus on the stuff I need to focus on, and it creates a constant cycle of opportunity for new people to build their careers in creative management roles.
Of course, if your cashflow allows it, you can just pay someone outright. But we think this aligns more with the goals and values of coworking than just hiring an employee. We truly wanted that person to be a part of the community, rather than a service for the community. By going the route of empowerment rather than employment, we achieved a lot of goals together.
Oh, and if you ever meet Dana at IndyHall, SXSW, or anywhere else…be sure to say hi.
