Team Building How do you prevent burnout among your community staff?

[Cedric]

Managing an online community can be rewarding, but it also comes with unique challenges that can easily lead to burnout - especially for moderators and other dedicated staff members. This topic invites everyone to share their best strategies, tips, and personal experiences for helping community staff stay motivated, balanced, and engaged without feeling overwhelmed.

Some questions to consider:

• What signs of burnout have you noticed in yourself or your team?
• How do you ensure staff members take breaks and prioritize self-care?
• Do you have any policies or practices in place to support staff well-being?
• How do you handle conflicts or high-stress situations to prevent added pressure?

Let’s discuss practical ways to support our team members and keep our communities thriving!

 

[Cory]

I think burnout can occur in many different ways of life, even if you're passionate about it. You don't always want to overdo something where you become burnt out on it. You can take X amount of time to engage in the forum activities and moderation as a staff member, you don't have to sit in front of the forum 24/7 to be a dedicated staff member. Prioritize the time you spend doing things you enjoy and are required to do. I used to get burnt out on helping people quite often and I kept pushing myself to help people with their forums and coding assistance to the point where I was driving myself a bit crazy in doing so because I felt like I must be there for people 24/7 because I was addicted to what I did.

 

[fdk]

I think it's important to vary the duties/roles you ask your staff members to fulfill, especially if they're a volunteer. Some staff are more than happy to remain in a single position, while some may want to do something else or have some other duties. My forum used to have a few additional "tasks" that were assigned to staff, they were not "necessities" but rather staff could volunteer to take the tasks on on a rota basis, things like "archive time" where a member of staff would be asked to spend two hours moving threads around forums based on which leagues/countries the games were in etc (yes we had a complicated system lol).

Whenever a staff member volunteered to take part in any of these extra tasks, I only ever asked them to do them for an hour or two a week as they were rather menial and I appreciated their time, and I also checked in regularly to see if they were happy to continue to offer their time once a week, letting them know it was absolutely fine if not.

It's also important to support and encourage staff to take a break. I once actually banned a Moderator for 2 days from my forum after he told me he was going away for a weekend with his girlfriend, as I knew he'd be tempted to check in otherwise. Personal time is important too to not cause burnout.

 

[Chris C]

• How do you ensure staff members take breaks and prioritize self-care?
• Do you have any policies or practices in place to support staff well-being?

We have a staff thread where everybody just posts that they will be taking some time off (they usually include for how long), and it's a no questions asked kinda thing, Everything's volunteer. So we just wish each other a great time and see you when you get back. That way nobody feels burdened.

May not work with a high volume or high maintenance site where somebody's absence could break the place, but in a medium to smaller-sized community, nobody's gonna be missed for that long, So it's "Take all the time you need." Works seamlessly for us.

 

[Cedric]

We have a staff thread where everybody just posts that they will be taking some time off (they usually include for how long), and it's a no questions asked kinda thing, Everything's volunteer. So we just wish each other a great time and see you when you get back. That way nobody feels burdened.

May not work with a high volume or high maintenance site where somebody's absence could break the place, but in a medium to smaller-sized community, nobody's gonna be missed for that long, So it's "Take all the time you need." Works seamlessly for us.

What’s the longest someone’s been away? And do you demote them to regular member during that time?

 

[Chris C]

What’s the longest someone’s been away? And do you demote them to regular member during that time?

No demoting, unless they meant for like a year or something.

But I think the longest was really only about 4-5 days, so it's not really appreciable. It's just nice to know so you don't wonder why someone isn't covering their responsibilities all of a sudden.

 

[Cedric]

No demoting, unless they meant for like a year or something.

But I think the longest was really only about 4-5 days, so it's not really appreciable. It's just nice to know so you don't wonder why someone isn't covering their responsibilities all of a sudden.

Indeed. It causes an odd feeling. Knowing that person is on the forum daily and then all the sudden you don’t see them for days or weeks. Makes you wonder and worry nothing happened.

 

[KatBookTrailers]

I think burnout is inevitable for the hard working staff member. They're there because they love it and want to see the place succeed. I really encourage long LOAs when possible, but no more than 30 days. It feels good to take a break and get refreshed and then have the energy to get back into the swing of things.

 

[Wise Owl]

The forum I had most team members had its burnout due to little forum activity. They all wanted some role on the forum but it ended with only them writing while real members (so to say) were not there. Because of this, I will not hire people in team unless it is really important.