Confidence answering forum questions

Hi everyone

Recently I surveyed colleagues who answer questions in our public forums. Now to set the scene:

  • Colleagues are not obligated to answer forum questions as part of their roles, it is mainly done when they have time to browse and answer where they can
  • We changed the wording of Verified Answer to Accepted Answer to put the responsibility on the member who asked the question in terms of any actions they take based on answers provided

In the survey, I received a couple of comments that indicated some hesitation on participating in a public setting:

  • 'Not willing / confident / feel enabled to speak on behalf of Arm.'
  • 'Some people may be unaware of them, or think it is not their responsibility, or they are worried about answering (publicly) correctly, or they don't want their name publicly visible'

Has anyone else encountered this with colleagues supporting their forums and has anyone taken steps to mitigate this?

Thanks

Oli

Parents
  • In addition to all of the great feedback in this thread, I wanted to add that getting team managers (or higher) to advocate for community participation is a huge help. We have a few managers who are very active in our community and their team members tend to be the more active individual-contributor-level employees. If they see their manager participating, and, even better if the manager shows and encourages that participation, the team members gain more confidence.

    I know in one support manager's case, he tries to push his team to participate and explains to them that they will help raise their own profile within the company, and getting their name more "out there" helps a lot for things like annual reviews, promotions, etc. 

    I've also set up some roles within the community for some team managers so that the manager (who has reporting access) can report on their team members' participation and activity. These are used to praise the active members and create a small sense of competition but are not used with any negative connotation (as participation is just "extra credit," not "required").

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  • In addition to all of the great feedback in this thread, I wanted to add that getting team managers (or higher) to advocate for community participation is a huge help. We have a few managers who are very active in our community and their team members tend to be the more active individual-contributor-level employees. If they see their manager participating, and, even better if the manager shows and encourages that participation, the team members gain more confidence.

    I know in one support manager's case, he tries to push his team to participate and explains to them that they will help raise their own profile within the company, and getting their name more "out there" helps a lot for things like annual reviews, promotions, etc. 

    I've also set up some roles within the community for some team managers so that the manager (who has reporting access) can report on their team members' participation and activity. These are used to praise the active members and create a small sense of competition but are not used with any negative connotation (as participation is just "extra credit," not "required").

Children