Lessons learned: managing inappropriate behaviors in a coliving community

As a Coliving operator, we are often asked about the biggest challenge we've encountered. Our answer is always the same: dealing with inappropriate behavior within our community (or let's call a spade a spade: toxic residents).

Coliving is all about people living together in harmony, but unfortunately, no community is immune to difficult guests. We had one such experience where we had to deal with guests ganging up on one of our staff members who was also part of the community. Long story short, it was so brutal that we had to remove our staff from the house for a few days until the guests left. We won't lie, it was heartbreaking for our team and for us as founders (yes you guessed it, we ended up eating way too much ice cream and went all in on meditation exercises).

This experience made us realize that having a specific set of business structures and rules is essential for colivings to function properly. Although we had house rules and a code of conduct in place for many years, we decided to rewrite them and make them compulsory for our guests to read before booking their stay. We now have a strict policy that reminds guests of the code of conduct they agreed to when booking, and if their behavior doesn't change, they are asked to leave immediately. This not only ensures that everyone feels safe and respected during their stay with us, but also that our business is not overrun by a bunch of unhappy customers. #selfprotection

At ESCAPE, we promote diversity and inclusivity, but we've learned that even the best people can become abusive without realizing it. This experience showed us that having strong rules is necessary to make sure it works for everyone.

If you've dealt with difficult customers, what changes have you made to protect your customers, your business and your team? Let's start a conversation about how we can make coliving (or our business in general) a better and safer experience for everyone.

#Coliving #CommunityLiving #InappropriateBehavior #BusinessStructures #CodeOfConduct #GuestBehavior #DiversityAndInclusion #SafetyAndRespect #DifficultCustomers #TeamManagement #SharedLiving #Harmony #ExperienceSharing #PositiveChanges #BetterLiving