Many different personalities will make up a community, and not all of these will be easy. Training your team to be able to handle conflict or more challenging personalities effectively and positively is important to maintaining that authentic and harmonious community feel. A few points to include in your employee training are:

• Don’t take it personally – In certain situations, emotions may run high, but that doesn’t mean your team should take it personally. It can sometimes be the job of staff to “take a hit” from an emotional resident, but they’re not actually frustrated with the staff member but the situation that caused the high emotion in the first place. Reminding your team to remain friendly, calm, and courteous first is an excellent way to diffuse the situation and keep things professional.

• Don’t judge the problem – What may not seem like a major issue to an employee can be a very big deal to a resident. Judging the problem is akin to minimizing it, which can cause these situations to escalate. Rather than judging the problem, simply focus on ways that community employees can work to change or fix it.

• Listen first – In many instances listening makes a big impact. In emotionally charged situations, the resident may simply wish to get their frustrations out first before the conflict naturally calms, so stopping to simply listen can make all the difference.

• Follow through – When you or your team says they’re going to do something, actually doing it is important. Follow through helps to build trust and confidence between your staff and your residents and can help to ease challenging personalities or conflict going forward. Things shouldn’t be said simply for appeasement, and authentic resolutions are important.

At OccupancySolutions.com we want to help community management teams to create a harmonious, happy, and positive communities for their residents. To learn more about conflict resolution, handling challenging personalities, and more, contact us today.