How do you manage your staff? What i do generally is I would say them a hi and speak more to them using any of the chat clients that they own. By doing so, I will be in a position to build a more friendly and stronger realtionship with them first before assigning them any more tasks. This is a great way to concrete and iron out any staff issues also. but since I am getting too used to my own methods, I decided to experiment with any new ones that you guys might be having!
I usually send them a private message and communicate with them through that. And or, speak with them over instant messengers. It's always nice to get to know your staff so you know what everyone is capable of doing.
I'm usually already friends or regularly talking to the people before I make them staff, so that doesn't really change for me. They're usually added to a staff board and that's where any business-related stuff takes place.
For my last site, I was friends (not real life friends, but online friends) with my co-admins, and some of my mods. Most of them I had them as friends on Facebook, but we preferred to talk on the staff forums, rarely on any chat. Keeping a friendly relationship is important, but it never has to go too friendly - no, I don't mean sexual, I mean making preferences between staff members because you're best friends with someone but just friends with other member.
We don't have any staff at my forum, because I can handle all the workload myself as we're still a small community. I'd only hire staff for my forum that are active in the community, and I'd try to have conversations with them on a regular basis to make sure they're doing the job properly.
