Why a staff team is important
Having a good staff team around your server/community is crucial for it to survive and thrive. A staff team serves the purpose of handling tasks you, the owner does not have the time or the knowledge to complete. These tasks can be anything from configuring plugins and building your spawn to moderating the chat while you are asleep.
A staff team, and often a management team can also give you valuable insight into any flaws your server may have. They should always try to help the server, especially finding out what players like and dislike and dealing with it accordingly. Community managers are often a valuable asset for this.
How to recruit staff
Getting people to join your staff team can be both a tedious and difficult process, especially if you do not know what you are doing. There are multiple ways to get people to become staff on your server, some are of course better than others. I will briefly go through a few of them in this blog. Remember you can always train your staff through guidelines, guides, regulations, training, you name it. Having staff members with a great attitude that values teamwork and the server is the most important quality they can possess.
Friends
You may have some friends who have been in the Minecraft scene for a long time and could make great staff members for your server. It is important that you can trust these individuals, and that they have the server best interest at heart. You could also try recruiting players you have staffed with yourself.
Your own community
The best way to get qualified staff members to join your team is through your own community. You should always aim to recruit qualified staff members within your server. These players know your server and its core features inside out. They are familiar with a handful of members, and hopefully, they have a good reputation. You as the owner is also more comfortable with handling responsibilities with players you are familiar with and have seen and interacted with plenty of times. These candidates can be judged through actual interactions, rather than answers on applications and interviews.
Forums
There is a lot of talented people on the different Minecraft forums, most capable of doing a solid job as a staff member on your server. However, it is important to note these candidates do not have experience as a player on your server. They are also not familiar with your community. Hence training and integrating them into the community may be required. You also may need an intriguing post and server to attract the best of the best on these forums. You should also note that some candidates may require some kind of reward for management, builder or developer positions.
Server lists
Utilizing server lists will attract many candidates. It is important to use tags like "staff", "need-staff", etc. in order to reach your targeted group better. Using server lists will give you many candidates. However, most of them are lacklustre both quality wise and attitude-wise. It is crucial to screen out the "bad eggs" through applications, interviews, and so forth. It is also important to note they can be trained, a great attitude outweighs great quality.
How to train Staff
Getting staff on your server is one thing, the other is getting them on your level of expectations. It is important that your staff is a role model for your community. They should be flawless and never break any major rules. It is essential that they enforce the rules fairly and treat everyone equally.
In order to train your staff, it is important to have enough guidelines, rules and so forth that can answer any of their questions when you or other staff are unavailable. These guides can be anything from punishment guidelines, to how to screen share. You can also introduce mentorship programs within your staff team to increase their competence.
Conclusion
A staff team is crucial, and you should always have a team surrounding your server. A great staff team is often essential for your server to succeed. You as an owner cannot do everything, you need to delegate some tasks. It is also important that the staff team compliment each other. Have a wide range of different skills, and spread through the different timezones.
Communication is also crucial. You can have the most talented and best staff members around, but without proper communication, the staff team will crumble and collapse. It is important to have good communication channels, and that you communicate often and are open with each other. You should never relay all communication on your server chat, have a discord, slack, whatever. This is so you can reach each other when you are AFK or playing another game. These platforms can be used to discuss grander topics easier as well.