If community growth is one of your objectives, have you thought about the staffing structure you'll need to support this growth? Two recent posts of mine focused on scaling: Help my community's too big, and how to manage a community around the clock. This post focuses on the staffing structure.
It's no secret businesses want their online communities to attract more members, often without addressing the issue of resources until it's too late. It's very difficult to retroactively change the dynamics of your community. So if you find yourself in this position you may want to consider your options.
Some businesses have top heavy models and employ large teams of moderators or community managers (eg. Sony Playstation Europe who have 14 multi-lingual mods working in tshifts of two), whilst some like the community I work with have a bottom-heavy structure where the 30/33 forum staff are volunteers.
The success of our community is by and large attributable to our large team of volunteer Moderators, many of whom have been around since the dawn of the community some 9 years ago. (They can certainly regale a tale or two from bygone eras!)
In my experience, in terms of community staffing there doesn't appear to be a best practice. Correct me if I'm wrong!
So I have written this blog to address what I see as the Pros & Cons of having a team of volunteers. Hat tips to Patrick O'Keefe (@ifroggy) and Ben (@BenJoM) for their input listed below.
Disclaimer: a lot of these have been derived from colleagues and are not necessarily reflective of my wonderful Mod team (*hello*).
PROS OF VOLUNTEER MODERATORS
- Free (although I suggest a rewards program)
- Status/respect in community
- Passionate
"Love of site, they have contributed within the guidelines, good feel for the community, not driven
by money. I don't think that paying people leads to better people. In some ways..." @ifroggy
- Advocates - Better advocates for the community as they are members foremost
- Stability - low turnover (in my experience) means they're great for knowledge continuity. There are so
many nuances of communities and experience that is almost impossible to document in a formal staff
handover process
- Credibility - vibe that forums are run by the members
- Less red tape? No performance management documentation, less HR red tape etc.(Perhaps more, depending on your co.)
- Remote workforce (lower overheads, can work in time zones that suit your needs).
CONS OF VOLUNTEER MODERATORS
- Priorities - "Professional" relationship can be harder to maintain when volunteers are not employees,ergo more time consuming to maintain a personal/professional relationship. Life (fairly) will come first.
- Rostering - can be difficult if you require someone on 24/7. (Paid software such as SmartShift can help, as used by Habbo)
"Can only place limited time requirements on them, have to be extremely flexible, re: vacations, life
takes priority" @ifroggy
- Dismissal - hard to fire a volunteer (thankfully I haven't had to!)
- Expectations - Will have varied opinions about what they expect in return for their labour.
- Communication - Hard to communicate directives if you can't gather them online at once, disseminating 2nd hand info can lead to misunderstandings
- Objectivity - May be harder to be objective when they are ensconced in community
- Shared vision - May not be interested in or agree with fundamental business objectives / too protective of community?
- Remote workforce - minimal/0 face to face interaction
- Unpredictable - and can be difficult to control (@BenJoM)
(If you source your staff from the community it will bridge some of these points. Sourcing volunteers from your community is another post for another day!)
Can you identify any pros and cons of working with a volunteer team?
Nice article! Happy to have contributed in some small way.
ReplyDeletePatrick
Some great points Alison, thanks for highlighting this aspect of community management. The moderators for the community I manage are totally volunteer, and the pros and cons you've listed are spot on.
ReplyDeleteAnother difficulty with volunteers is how a member adapts to the switch from regular member to moderator. It sometimes spoils the enjoyment of the community for them as they can't be as free with their opinions etc as the once were, as they need to be seen as being "neutral". That's tough for some of them to get the hang of.
Oh and as you have mentioned it is also a delicate matter when you need to ask a volunteer moderator to "step down".
Great summary Alison, some really good points there.
ReplyDeleteFurther to your comment ExpatNeelie are some more questions:
Can moderators also be active community members with opinions?
Can moderators have multiple accounts, one which is their moderator account and another which is their normal "user with an opinion" account?
I'm sure there are pros and cons of both and it depends on the situation, but I think ideally a moderator needs to have some sort of opinion or personality in the forums as it was that opinion and personality that got them into the forum in the first place.
Thanks Patrick, Neelie & Ben.
ReplyDeleteNeelie this is an excellent point I managed to forget, thank you! I sometime see potential in members as Mods but have to weigh up the cost of losing their involvement & contribution.
Ben I understand your point. It seems ironic to choose a member based (in some part) on their personality and way of communicating only to have them retreat. From my experience Mods choose not to participate as actively because members sometimes use it against them. They also have the responsibility of upholding model behaviour, which is sometimes easier achieved with fewer words :P I think they offer opinion on minor issues but they steer clear of contentious ones. (They've also been around long enough to have seen debates time and time again).
Re: double accounts. I have seen forums that differentiate between Mod and Member by a font colour in their response. I haven't seen double accounts used effectively IMO.
If you liken Mods to teachers of sorts (rather than police!) I guess their is a level of personal involvement you expect as acceptable? Or colleagues/"superiors"? Food for thought!
I would say that you bring moderators on because they have demonstrated excellent behavior in your forums. Staff can represent a stepping up, of sorts, but it doesn't repepresent a complete attitude adjustment - they have to already be doing a lot right.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone is meant to be a moderator, only a select few. Being on staff means being an example for members to follow and if someone isn't comfortable with that, then they aren't meant to be a moderator. That's perfectly fine.
They can definitely be active in the community... just like the administrator can. But, when you are a moderator... or an administrator... you must accept that with your words comes a certain responsibility because people will do what you do. That's not unfair - it's part of the responsibility. Again, not everyone is meant to have these roles, though.
I don't really like the idea of double accounts, myself.
Just some thoughts. :)
Patrick