How do you deal with staff issues? I'm lucky in that I very rarely have any staff issues, but on other sites I have come across problems where staff members have a huge personality clash and they constantly contradict each other both publically and in the staff forums. What if you have two people on the staff who singularly are excellent at their jobs, but cannot get along with each other - how do you deal with it?
They would get told to stop the fighting or they would be demodded. The fact that they have been contradicting each other and fighting in public and private is enough for me to realise that they are not going to do their job and probably are just using their status to get one over on each other. My site's a happy place to be. Nobody is gonna ruin that
In the 10+ years I've run our site, only two staff members have been fired. One was due to a conflict between myself and another staff member (moderator). The result of that was an immediate ban by the site owner after he went in and deleted all my posts. The other individual was canned by yours truly after he pulled a stunt and made a PM from another member public in the forums. Other than that, just the normal resignations due to real life issues, etc. etc. etc. New members are never approached to be "staff". Only after years of participation is any thought given to bringing someone on board.
If they are unprofessional, they go. There's always someone who's causing the issues so, if they don't get their act together, they are demoted and even banned, if still keep on abusing members. I had great problems in the past with people who cannot 'stand' others, and if you cannot work in my community and respect the others, you're free to find yourself another community.
^I've seen you around Another Admin forums HI!!(I am the newb with all the questions about SMF LOL) But i really should become a little more stricter/tougher than I am on my team as they literally do nothing. They will ask me what they can do knowing very well they have no idea how to design or code. and there can be things in the forum that need to be locked, changed, merged or whatever and they just....sit in the chatbox -_-
Right now, my staff is composed of people who I've known in real life and members that have proven themselves to be trustworthy and dependable. So I don't have any serious issues or problems in that regard.
Fairness in management comes from a sharing of expectations and an adherence to that expectation. Have you amply communicated to your staffers what is expected of them and what the consequences are if they do not follow through? If yes, then do what you said you were going to do. It's unfair to yourself and to anybody else actually living up to the expectation to not do so. If no, fix that, immediately. Otherwise you'll end up raging and kicking people and they'll all yelp like puppies when you do because you didn't take the time to communicate your expectation. It's not really about being strict. It's about being fair. Failing to bring down the hammer when it's called for is just as much a failure as going on a rampage without them understanding why. Be as strict or as lenient in your expectations as you wish to be, but make sure to communicate it and to follow through on it. There are dramatic and incompatible personalities out there, but I've found a lot more drama comes from a lack of communication with the people who aren't particularly otherwise troublesome; you can generally cull the incompatible if you end up with them because they'll never play by your rules anyway and they'll gladly take whatever rope you hand them and hang themselves with it.
