The New Rules of Engaging Community Members & Staff By Marne Logan, CCAM-LS
I say “new rules”, but it is not so much new rules as we have been heavily in the midst of the viral experience in mass proportions already. It is just how we are handling that experience that is the kicker. Certainly, you could say that engagement has morphed into a whole new animal this year since the events of March and April changed how we do engage and move forward. In the beginning, I decided that I was going into work no matter what was mandated as I did not want to leave my community high and dry. Most of my fellow compatriots felt the same way. It was the right thing to do. Good news, that down road a couple of weeks, we, the management framework for a plethora of communities, would be considered essential to the workforce. Phew!
Necessity creates and stimulates some great inventions, thoughts, interactions, and processes.
As you would guess, moving forward is the common thread and like any kind of change, there are some who are more reluctant than others to put one foot in front of the other. I am not wild about the kind of changes that have been forced upon us all, however, being smart and leadership minded about moving through those changes is also the key and a must.
I digress. There are government-mandated closures that took effect quickly and left us all spinning in place with a lot of energy and questions and not a lot of answers or movement, in a positive manner. In our industry, luckily, community members familiar with the digital age transitioned more quickly than those who are resistant to technology as you would imagine – especially 44
Vision Winter 2020 | cacm.org
important, since it would become our primary point of interface. Staff at almost every community location are in the digital age and can’t even contemplate going back to what some would consider the Stone Age (before cell phones, texting and instant messages). So, here we are in the fall of 2020 and a smidgen of light at the end of the tunnel, less restrictions, I hope is at hand. However, in the meantime necessity creates and stimulates some great inventions, thoughts, interactions, and processes. I posed some questions to Carl Weise, CAMEx, CCAMHR.AA and General Manager at Four Seasons at Terra Lago, due to his innovative staff and highly positive outcomes regarding his collective pandemic muscle. As soon as the virus haze and spin diminished, Carl and staff were ready with creative assistance and support for each other and for the community. Phone was an obvious prerequisite–calls increased and staff were kept quite busy mapping out solutions via electronic means of every known variety. However, in Carl’s words, there was still some need for in-person interaction that could not be avoided–sometimes, faceto-face is the only way to accomplish a goal and support either staff or a community member in need. For example, owners with architectural applications began submitting their over-sized blueprints via dropoff locations along with physical samples needed for the submittal. (Distances have been kept and masks are required and gloves when handling documents from owners.) Or, oftentimes, a face-to-face is needed for a completely frustrated and angry community member,
