How do you deal with inactive staff?

Shortie861 Level 1

April 1, 2017, 7:13 pm

8

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Running forums is a difficult task, often you need staff to help you run a forum so that you don't get run down dealing with all the problems that can arise on your own. Unfortunately staff will become inactive whether it be due to personal reasons or just because they are no longer interested in being on your forum and when that happens you have to find the best way to approach that and deal with that.

I always tell my staff that if they are inactive for a period of 7 days I will contact them and ask if everything is okay usually by email so that I know they may receive it if they have not been active on the forums. If I do not get a reply within 3 days I will then take action and demote them. I understand that everyone runs into personal problems in life meaning forums are not their main priority which is fine but when you do not hear from your staff within 10 days I guess the only action you can take is to demote them and then deal with it if you hear from them after that.

How do you deal with inactive staff?

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Cristian

Cristian

Depends if the staff is paid or not. If the staff is paid, well yes, it makes sense to remove them for inactivity and hire someone that can do the job and is active enough.
But if the staff works for free and pleasure, well, I wouldn't demote them right away. Free work is hard to come by and I personally would like to have a few moderators that work for free instead of one that works for money.

10 years ago

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Barida

Barida

You have a point on whether the staff is paid or not. If one is paying the staff, then taking such decision to demote them is cool but on the other hand, when they receive no payment, talking it out with them is nice.

9 years ago

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MariaC

MariaC

Well, some forums don't pay their moderators. therefore, it is not expected that they must be online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If your forum pays those staffs you are talking about, then fine you can set a rule to how frequent they must be. Otherwise, there must be flexibility since everyone has live outside online forums.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Everyone have got jobs they do outside and that's the reason we have to put that into consideration before demoting them. Having a meeting with them is better, in my opinion.

9 years ago

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Raja0803

Raja0803

If a staff member is inactive for an extended amout of time, the admins will try contacting them. If they are still inactive they will get demoted. But as mentioned, some staff have things going on irl and can not dedicate much time to the server. They are only volunteers after all.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I have close connections with one local forum on entertainment here. They have a staff of 3 that are all paid with a token. When the community started to grow, they tried to hire unpaid moderators who help in moderation only when they are active. In other words, the full monitoring of the forum cannot be assured because the unpaid moderators don't stay for long on the forum. The paid staff are still the ones handling the operation. Even the admin's friends couldn't help in the work because they are not paid.

9 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Payment is core when we talk of having moderators. One thing about that is the need to understand that when people are not getting any benefit doing a work, the interest they have on it reduces.

9 years ago

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Pixie06

Pixie06

Inactive staffs can definitely make things difficult for you. It is not easy for a single person to handle an interactive forum. I think when hiring the person we must include a condition telling them to inform us beforehand if they are considering to take a break. Professionalism is important.

9 years ago

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