A diverse staff is the way to go when it comes to community management. With diversity in your staff, you’re better able to connect with residents in a personal way, you’re able to master new and old technologies and strategies, and you’re able to benefit from a mix of wisdom, enthusiasm, energy, and learning. While a diverse staff made up of individuals coming from different generations is the ideal way to go, it can bring about some differences or conflict from time to time.

A staff member from the Baby Boomer Generation or Generation X might have their own strategy or approach to a problem, and that strategy might differ from what a Millennial or Generation Z staff member thinks is the best course of action. Effectively managing generation gaps in your community management staff makes sure you get the most out of your diverse team. A few tips for excellent management strategies across generations are:

•    Don’t assume you always know best – In community management, it can be easy to fall into the pattern of always believing you know best. This can cause biases and a failure to really stop and listen to the other ideas being brought to the table. Rather than jumping to your conclusion, listen to all ideas without bias and be comfortable with the fact that new or different can sometimes be a better approach.

•    Develop a mentorship program – When staff members connect, they grow closer through empathy and understanding. Setting up a mentorship program between generations in your team can help these friendships and connections to develop naturally, and therefore foster understanding. With understanding, the community gets the benefit of the best of all worlds.

•    Get to know the primary differences between generations – With understanding it’s much easier to see where different parties are coming from. Leading a diverse and multi-generational community management team means getting to know just what those key differences between the generations are. With this knowledge you’ll be better able to solve conflicts and encourage your team.

•    Promote collaboration – Collaboration is a gift in any community management team. Two heads are always better than one, and this rings particularly true when you’re gathering those individuals from different life experiences. Promoting collaboration encourages your team to work together to solve issues and come up with solutions in the best possible way.

At OccupancySolutions.com we want to help community management teams to lift, inspire, and get the best out of their teams. To learn more about managing multi-generational check us out at OccupancySolutions.com today.