I run a site which relies on an internal social network for communication between teachers and students. Most updates to the news feed (think Facebook status update) are students posting their updates and success/failures with projects. How should a business like this compensate employees for participating in the social network, either by posting status updates themselves or replying to a student's updates.
In this case, my employees are paid hourly for work that is mostly completed outside of the social network. Creating courses, teaching, and writing.
On one hand, I feel that the employees should be self-motivated to see the site succeed and be willing to participate on their own, without compensation, for a couple of hours each week (2-3 hours for the entire week). Obviously, the onus then falls on me to make sure it is a fun community and I am ok with that.
However, I am not opposed to paying my employees, but my issue with paying hourly is tracking hours recorded. On a social network, an update might take five minutes. An employee might check-in in the morning, see a member update, post, and then in five minutes they are done. Other times, it may be 15 minutes spent a time. Add this up a couple of times per day and you get an hour or two per day on the site. If one were to compensate hourly employees, how would you go about tracking it?
Finally, what if hourly employees are receiving equity (1-2%)? Does this change how or they should be compensated?
Thanks in advance
