PAID Staff?

For those of you that run profitable forums, have you ever had or considered PAID staff?

How did/would you structure it? They MUST be online at certain times of day like a regular job?

How about payment?

This is something I'm considering for one of my forums.

 

If it ever came down to me paying my moderators, I would definitely have higher expectations. Well, actually, I would hold them to the same expectations that I currently do, but I would be less lenient with exceptions.

I wouldn't require x amount of hours to be put in or anything. I'd let them decide how they want to divide their time and work, but I'd expect it to be done. As long as the forum is being taken care of and things are running smoothly, I wouldn't care if they spend ten minutes or five hours on the site each day.

 

I would agree with Nick's concept. Give them a list of responsibilities (whether day-to-day or a month's worth), and keep track of whether they get it done or not by each pay period. I don't think it's fair or reasonable to tell them to need to log on 40 hours a week when their position only requires, say, 20.

I can't wait until any of my forums are at the point where we can pay people.

 

I agree about expectations. They would definitely need to do their work. I still don't know about hours. If they were paid enough, I might expect them to put in a certain number of hours, or at least be around at their assigned time of day.

It will take a while for the forum that I'm thinking of to be able to pay staff, but once it's at that point, I'm thinking that I actually hire staf in a part-time position, and maybe later, even as a full-time position, and if it were full-time, I WOULD require a certain amount of time online at certain times of day.

 

Haven't reached that point, we give perks and "bonuses" though.

 

Oh, if you're talking about full-time, then yeah, minimum hours would have to be set. Part-time should be more lenient with the hours, but you may find that setting a minimum is still a good idea. It all depends on the work ethnics of your staff.

 

I know of one super huge board whose owners pay their staff minimum wage or something for being on the site.

 

That would be a lot more than the owners of most sites get. :lol:

 

Indeed.

 

I was a member of a site called Meez, that could afford to pay a full staff at least 35K per year.

But back to the original question, having a paid staff is useless. Why pay someone when you can take on the workload yourself, or allow that that want to volunteer.

Had I paid moderators, etc, I would expect them to moderate a certain amount of hours a day, watch problematic members closely and be sure to be on as needed.

In other words, if I hired a staffing team that was going to be paid, they would consider my place their full time job, and yes, I would be paying them full time money. But in order to get to that point, well, you've got to do a whole lot of work.

 

i dont pay my staff, although i get them all something for christmas and their birthdays on one forum.

if i ever decided to do that i would definetly expect them to do the job and come on regularly, even more than i would for unpaid staff

 

I've been paid staff before, the money, while nice, was not the factor. I was an admin on the site when it was sold to a big site integrator. As they are a for profit entity when they asked me to stay on I asked for money. Its one thing when you know the site owner, believe in the vision and have the drive to assist. Its another story when that same site no longer has the same mission but is merely a profit center.

I do pay my admins when I can. They get a percentage of the net revenues monthly. I also send the mods gifts that I think have some meaning. I recently sent one of the mods that is a big F1 fan a book I'd know he like but would never buy. That gesture has many happy returns.

 

Its under consideration for me (When my forum grows bigger of course). I wouldn't mind paying my mods for working, so long as it persuades them to work harder

 

If you pay me to mod your site I would register in a second.

 

I don't understand this...how do you pay your staff...with the money from advertising? or does it come from your own pockets?

 

Whatever revenue your site makes. If none, then from your pockets. Same way any business owner pays their employees, more-or-less.

 

It must be so fulfilling to get to a stage whereby you can afford and comfortably do this!

 

I wish I could afford to do it. Not that I would pay moderators, but I wish I had revenue that would allow for it.

 

I actually feel guilty for NOT paying moderators on my sites. I know that they do so much for the betterment of my forums, that if I'm making money from my forums (I'm not), then they should be able to take a share of the profits (minus webhosting and maintenance costs).

I just have a feeling that with the forum I'm about to open "officially", that I will most likely be able to give back to my staff, even if we just make a little bit of profit.

 

I would never pay moderators. They haveto do it because they want to and not because they need to to get paid.

They get perks from sponsors, and they get kudos within the forums, and they like that.

Also, I say to them that if it ever becomes a chore, to log off and leave it a few days or whatever, and come back refreshed. As it can become a chore when decisions become a bit political for the sake of sponsors or certain high-posting members that they have to think about more before moderating.

We also have a rule that if we had 10 mods, and half did less, we'd get another 2 or 3. So to share the workload based on what the moderators do, rather than the traffic flow of the members and their activity etc. Which I noticed is what some of you guys said you did in another thread some time ago.