I think they should have a bit more difference than that. I know it can
sometimes be demoralizing to do work that other people are getting paid to
do. Some other differences I think we could identify are time commitment
and level of management and area of involvement.

A couple examples: If someone is putting in full time hours coding, this is
exactly the same job as Mozilla pays people to do, and so this person
should at least be offered a job as well.  On the other hand, currently
Mozilla does not pay people to run local events (as far as I know, if this
is wrong pretend it's true!), so someone choosing to put lots of hours into
that wouldn't feel the same disparity. Someone putting full-time hours into
managing a large community like Mozilla Hispano (another hypothetical since
this community explicitly avoids having a hierarchy) is bringing a lot of
value to Mozilla, and I think we should consider hiring them as they are
basically a project manager (think Brian King's new role).

I think these criteria (or other criteria that suit better) would help
guide when someone shouldn't be hired for a role, but also when a volunteer
should be (if they would like it!)

Another thought, if there are enough employees on a team to do all the
work, either there are too many employees or not enough work! Though in
reality I know this is paradoxical, as employees tend to be less community
focused when they feel like they have deadlines and not enough time to get
their work done. Management should be mindful to make sure their teams have
enough time in their roadmaps to onboard volunteers through the whole
process, not just at the end to spread the word.

It might also help to add to the position creation process a justification
- how will paying someone to do this help the volunteer community be more
successful? In my view of things, if Mozilla is at its core an open,
volunteer based community, then every hire needs to be for the purpose of
leveraging and maximizing the value of volunteer efforts. I'm sure that's a
controversial statement!


On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Rubén Martín
<[email protected]>wrote:

> El 07/04/13 17:29, Axel Hecht escribió:
> >
> > We need to 'manage' paid staff to be volunteers.
> >
> > "Paid staff" should really only differ to "volunteers" in NDAs and
> > no-bother-about-the-rent.
> I'd like to stress this part, I think it's a very interesting approach,
> and involves a lot of HR stuff inside de organisation (training,
> motivation, building connections...).
>
> Regards.
>
> --
> Rubén Martín [Nukeador]
> Mozilla Reps Mentor
> http://www.mozilla-hispano.org
> http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano
> http://facebook.com/mozillahispano
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
>
>
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