203: Managing and Assigning Roles for Multi Admin Communities

The best way to recruit your team of admins is to look among your most active members or those you know share your passion for the community and its values. You can also make an announcement post to look for volunteers or ask for nominees. Evaluate volunteers and nominees by comparing what you know about them against your mission, looking at their activity in the groups, and their history interacting with other members.

When choosing your admin team, think about what they can do that you can’t. Having a team with different and complementary skills, and specialties will enable you to strengthen your teamwork and performance. At the same time, consider including admins that reflect the diverse make-up of your community. Their ability to represent the different perspectives of your members, can be helpful in setting strategy and managing any challenges with content or members.

All community admins have the ability to add new admins, up to twenty admins per community. It is a good idea to agree with your admin team on the criteria for adding new admins. Do also set the expectation that all admins will notify and align with you and/or existing admins before adding anyone new to the community admin team. More admins will help to distribute workload, but more people can also increase complexity. Make sure any new admins are people you all feel comfortable working with.

Community admins can remove other admins from the community. You are also able to remove yourself, unless you are the creator of the community. If a community admin no longer wants to be an admin, inform your team and look for a suitable replacement for the role.

As you add new members to your community and group admin teams, it is important to support them through access to training, tools and resources. Do remember to direct them to this Communities Learning Center!

Consider starting an Admin Only group to enable the team to connect with each other, seek guidance, and provide feedback. Assign an existing admin as a mentor or buddy to the new recruit so that they have a person to turn to for help and answers to questions they may have. It is a good idea to organize social activities regularly for admins to relax, socialize, and strengthen their bonds.

Make sure your team knows how much you value them by congratulating and thanking them publicly for their service. Motivate them by recognizing their contribution with a title, like Community Manager, that can be shared on their profile.

Don't forget to look out for signs of work and emotional overload among your team members. Do encourage them to reach out to other teammates for support and take a break if needed.

As your community grows and the number of members increases, it is important to share and balance the workload among your admin team. It is good practice to schedule regular admin group calls to share information, discuss issues, and align on tasks. Understanding the different strengths and skill sets you have among your admin team will help you to best assign roles, and agree on limitations of each admin’s responsibilities. For example, one admin might be really sociable and might enjoy interacting with members, and welcoming newcomers. Another admin might be great at managing conflict and do better at handling sensitive situations, and calming down situations between members.

Don’t forget to discuss and agree on the working hours for each team member, while keeping in mind how your community members may need your support throughout the year. It is also a good idea to discuss how quickly you are expected to respond to members’ messages or questions.

When working together as a team, it is possible that conflict may arise. If you feel frustrated or irritable, give yourself some time to take a step back. If you notice a team member getting stressed or overly agitated, communicate with compassion, and suggest they take a break for a while.

Similar to managing conflict within your community, listen carefully and ask questions to better understand what is causing the other person to feel frustrated before you decide on how to resolve the issue. If their tasks are causing them stress or frustration, consider other roles that could be more suitable for them.

Before removing an admin, have a conversation with them and let them know how their actions are affecting the admin team and the community. This is an opportunity for you to provide feedback and for them to be able to work and improve on their behaviour.

If you still cannot work together effectively in the end, remove them from the admin team, but allow them to remain in your community. Consider making an announcement about the change in roles, wishing them well, and move on.