Staff Management Have any of your staff left without saying a word?

[Ja sa bong]

It's vital to have a section where staffs give an update about leaving for a period of time. This will help the forum owner to plan ahead against the absence of the staff member. If there is a need to look for a replacement until the staff member is back, the decision will be made. There are some staff members who doesn't know how to follow protocol. They will leave without saying anything.

Have any of your staff member left without updating you?

 

[Cedric]

@Liam left us for a couple of days past week, but he had issues not having connection not knowing in advance. That got me a bit worried, haha. Ily bby!

But can’t say we’ve had this problem before.

 

[Reverie]

I've seen it happen, and kind of had it happen on forums I worked on. People would disappear for about a month and users and staff began questioning. I give people a week without me hounding them because so much can occur in a week. At the 2 week point I try reaching out and seeing if they are okay. Typically staff members might disappear for a week every once and a while. If people are gone longer than that, or not doing their particular job position role that's when we remind them with a shoutout about the absence thread.

It's good to alert people if you're going to be away - but we are only human and I can understand when things just come up and you can't manage to get online to post about it.

 

[Jane]

Depends..sometimes life happens. If it was a LONG absence I would send a message

 

[Darth Cognus]

It happens especially if the platform runs a little out of control and is big, where personally prodding everyone may be tedious and there are more opportunities for people to simply poof. Perhaps they were introduced in something minor and just... dropped off. In these cases an inactivity policy might help, and/or an open door policy that people who are inactive are set in a back burner role or back to member, but can re-request when they are active and able again. And, I do agree to keep an open mind and be lenient as far as possible. It doesn't help to be punitive about absence when everyone is a volunteer.

 

[Liam]

@Liam left us for a couple of days past week, but he had issues not having connection not knowing in advance. That got me a bit worried, haha. Ily bby!

But can’t say we’ve had this problem before.

 

[Paul]

Yeah, one guy disappeared without a word, he returned a few months later citing 'personal problems' a week later he disappeared again. That was now five months ago so we presume same issues. Sadly have had to replace him this time with a new admin.

 

[MrDawn]

I can't say that I ever have. I tend to let them know when I'm done being a staff member rather than ghosting them.

 

[Empire]

What if you left without saying anything, Has anyone done that and what makes you say nothing?

 

[~ True Legend ~]

I sometimes get very busy with work or go on holiday and forget to let the other staff know. Now that I’ve been called out on it, I ensure I don’t make the same mistake again.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'll admit I've done this myself a couple of times. I felt burnout and instead of just informing the staff that I was going to take a break, I never came back. I haven't done this in a very long time though, and I know better not to do that anymore. It's just much better to let the other staff know you're going to be taking a break, and if you need longer just inform them. I've only had this happen to me on Mighty No. 9 Universe, but honestly I think my co-admin left because I made the move to a different platform from the one he was used to and I'm sure that's why he jumped ship. :S

 

[ZandraJoi]

On my own forum, I'm the only Staff.
To avoid burn-out, I don't bite off more than I can chew. I see some people are Staff on many, many forums & wonder why they don't get burnt-out! Then some DO leave because they took on too much.
I feel communication is vital but there are times in emergencies we cannot get a hold of another. For my forum, I do have the email of another member who could pass it on through the grapevine. I think having an email, phone number, is vital, provided you trust another. We make friends on these forums & our minds tend to go to the dark side when an active poster suddenly drops off.

 

[Cory]

Only once that I can recall, but I have a fuzzy memory and can't recall way far back. But, ever since my last staff members left/retired, I've been flying solo for years and I don't mind flying solo because I have enough time and dedication to attend to all aspects of my board.

It's odd when people leave cold turkey, but it's also understandable when life starts getting in the way that you may forget about a board you were a staff member of if you had to delete the bookmark or something so you wouldn't be distracted by it, or you just don't have the motivation to continue pursuing the forum's trend any longer. A heads-up is always nice, but it should be obvious to that person that if they're not going to be active for X amount of time then they'll eventually be demoted, which is what I'm guessing they would want anyway if they didn't continue to visit the board.

 

[Big Dan]

I never required anything of my staff. It's a volunteer gig and I was just happy to have the extra hands, so I didn't have to police the place 24/7.

Over the years there has been a few staff who just stopped coming around. Whether life got in the way, they were burned out on forums, or whatever I really don't know. Most moderators I had on Facebook anyhow, so I'd take a peek at what's going on there to see what's up or say hello.

Usually after 3 months of no login from a moderator I put them in a dummy user group which still lists them as staff but has no moderator permissions or access to the mod's forum in case their account is compromised.

The dummy usergroup for inactive moderators I think was the good way to handle the possible security issue with an inactive account that has mod permissions. Yet still show them on the staff list out of respect for the time they've spent helping. When/if they pop back up and are interested it's only a couple clicks to restore their mod privileges.

I've had two staff members pass away. In both cases I left them on as staff but changed to their password to something random and used one of my email addresses.

 

[NeoMetallix]

I have had this before and it's no problem. Life happens, they just lose staff status and someone else will assume that role!

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

We had some staff members get too vusy in real life and hadn't been around in several months. Eventually we reached out to them and talk about retiring them. Most are cool when this happens. They get busy, but then feel guilty, and it's a relief when we approach them kindly and let them know we understand.