Exclusive Staff in an Online Community: Pros and Cons

Having staff members for your online community is important but some community leaders prefer to have exclusive staff members in their community.

Having exclusive staff members has its advantages but also its disadvantages. Below we give you some pros and cons:

The Pros

Dedicated Support:

Dedicated support is possible when you have exclusive staff members available. This will allow them to focus solely on moderating and managing the community which will ensure a higher level of responsiveness and attention when issues arise

Consistency:

Having a dedicated staff team you will find that establishing consistent community guideline enforcement is possible. This can lead to problem-solving and moderation that is more effective.

Community Building:

Having a staff team that is exclusive to your community can help a great deal when it comes to community-building activities.

This can help foster a sense of belonging as well as encourage interactions that are positive among members.

Efficiency:

Having a team of exclusive staff members can ensure you have a team that is focused and may be more efficient in handling tasks related to the community. This may include organizing discussions or events, addressing conflicts or monitoring content.

Expertise:

Having a staff team that contains specialized staff members can develop expertise in managing dynamics and challenges that are specific to the community. This can lead to more effective problem-solving and moderation.

The Cons

Burnout:

The constant demand for the attention of your exclusive staff members in your online community may result in your staff suffering from burnout.

Dealing with community management can be psychologically draining and having a limited staff team may increase the chances of burnout.

Scalability Issues:

There is a chance that a staff team with exclusive staff members may in time struggle to handle the increased workload.

Online communities have been known to in some cases grow significantly over time and having a staff team that struggles to keep up with the workload can result in decreased effectiveness, slower response times or an urgent need to expand the staff team.

Dependency:

Dependency issues can arise if you rely on a small group of staff members. If a staff member chooses to leave or if they are unavailable for any reason, this may lead to disruption of the community management process.

Potential Bias:

Staff members who are exclusive may in time develop favouritism or biases over time which may happen unconsciously or consciously.

This can result in community members feeling as though there is unfairness within the community.

Restricted Viewpoint:

Having exclusive staff members may limit the diversity of viewpoints within the community. This could lead to decisions being made that do not consider the various preferences and needs of the community members.

In Conclusion

Having staff members who are exclusive to your community can provide focused expertise and attention but it may also present challenges that are related to bias, burnout, scalability or diversity.

If you are looking to have exclusive staff members, the key is to regularly assess the strategy you have in place for community management and strike a balance to adapt to the needs of your community.