Good Staff Communication Isn't Enough: Build a Culture of Connection

Discover the secrets to unifying your church staff through effective communication with Todd Rhoades, co-founder of chemistrystaffing.com. Our comprehensive survey of over a thousand church employees has brought to light an alarming communication gap. While a majority of staff feel connected to their leadership, a staggering 40% experience dissatisfaction or neutrality, which can sow seeds of disunity and high turnover rates. The episode zeroes in on actionable strategies like establishing an open-door policy, fostering transparency, and the critical role of regular staff meetings in creating an environment where every team member's voice is heard and valued. 

Join us as we confront the challenges and explore the profound impact that open lines of communication can have on the health and vitality of your ministry. Todd offers practical advice that can guide church leaders towards nurturing a more cohesive and satisfied team. We also invite you to share your experiences with us and take a proactive step in assessing the health of your church staff by participating in our free 2024 church staff health assessment. Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform the dynamics of your church staff and ensure a thriving ministry.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

All right. This week on the Healthy Church Staff podcast, we are talking about church staff communication and today's title is the Communication Line Open. Your staff holds the answer. We're going to talk about that. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom, and thanks for joining us for this edition of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're in the process of this week going through the topic of church staff communications and this all comes out of what we did last year and what we're just starting again. We just opened it up this year for our 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment and we'd love for you to take that if you haven't already over at churchstaffassessmentcom. It's absolutely free and at the end of it you get a nice little report telling you how you're doing from a church health standpoint. Get a score between zero and 100. I think it'd be really valuable for you. So, churchstaffassessmentcom, today we're talking about one of the statements we made last year and got feedback on from over a thousand church staff people. This is a statement we gave them.

Speaker 1: 1:14

There is a clear and open line of communication between church staff and church leadership and the results were really interesting. About 64% affirmed that there is positive lines of communication within the church. Most church staff feel fairly well-connected in their leadership. Like I said, 681 individuals, a little over 1,000 respondents. So about 64% agree or strongly agree that communication leadership is open and clear in their churches. That's great. That's great and we've talked about communication is not a switch that you flip. It is something that, wherever you are today, you want to try and be better tomorrow. So what we want to try and do this week is help you to get even a little bit better tomorrow than you were today. So 64% strongly agree or agree that communication is pretty open, pretty clear.

Speaker 1: 2:10

About 70%, though, either disagree or strongly disagree, and that is leaving them kind of feeling like they're in a communication limbo. They don't really know what's going on at the church. They don't know what's going on with the staff. They don't have any idea what the leadership is thinking. When we ask them is there clear and open lines of communication between church staff and leadership, they say no, there's not and it's bad. So about 17% said no. About 19% are either neutral, which means they're neither fully or satisfied or dissatisfied. Okay, let's start out with a positive. I always like to. I'm a glass half full kind of guy, right, according to who you ask about me. But some of the good stuff out of this is that, hey, a is 64% field communication, and it's pretty good, pretty good. But let's talk a little bit about those that are dissatisfied. Okay, and by dissatisfied either those that disagreed or strongly disagreed about 17%. But that's one out of five people on your staff. If you've got a staff of five, probably there's. If your church is typical, you've got probably one person on there anyway that feels like communication is horrible. You probably have another person, a second person out of five. That's yeah, maybe they're neutral. Okay, so let's talk about 17 that disagree or strongly disagree and the 19% that are neutral.

Speaker 1: 3:44

First of all, the 19% who remain neutral. They could go either way. Their neutrality may stem from various reasons. It could be a lack of clarity in communication. It could be. Maybe there's clarity, but there needs to be more frequent updates, maybe there need to be interactive discussions.

Speaker 1: 4:04

But I think and I'm reading something into this just from my experience in working with church staffs that some of the neutrality, some of those one in five, 19% that are neutral, that might be that there's just not consistent communication. So you might go and churches do this and leaders do this all the time where they go through maybe a period of a few weeks or a few months where, man, they're communicating everything, they're just popping everything out there and then it goes dark for six months. And or maybe a new initiative we're going to start this and it's going to be great, we're going to do this, and then they launch it and then nothing happens and the staff is sitting around thinking I don't know what's really happening here. So some of that neutrality might actually be. You've got some good things going on, it's just not consistent. Okay, so that's the 19%, the 17% who disagree again, probably about one in five if your church is typical. Those are the ones that you really have to watch out for, because and maybe you're listening to this and you're like, no, the communication sucks at my church. If this is not addressed, this is going to cause disunity. It's eventually probably going to cause more people rather than less people that are happy on your team with the communication and eventually it's going to cause staff turnover. If you're a leader, you're going to lose this person because they're going to get frustrated. If you're this person that's frustrated, you're probably going to look for something different, while we can say, hey, things are mostly good, a three out of five feel like we're doing a good job. It's those two out of five that we really need to try, through our communication strategy and really building into individuals, to try and move that gauge Again, not flipping a switch, but make things feel like you're making things better day to day, month to month.

Speaker 1: 5:57

What should you do If you're a leader? What should you do? I think you need to try and strive to bridge that communication gap for the 36 to 40% that are not completely satisfied. So how do you do that? Implementing an open door policy that could literally be leaving your door open and allowing people to come in and talk to you. Sometimes those closed doors of our leaders are intimidating and we don't want to bother. Closed doors of our leaders are intimidating and we don't want to bother. So implementing an open door policy. Enhancing transparency, regular staff meetings to discuss concerns and updates we're going to talk about that in a later episode. The number of church staff meetings that never happen, that should happen and some that happen, that shouldn't happen We'll talk about that in a later episode. So you have to stay tuned.

Speaker 1: 6:50

But just fostering this culture and I know it's. It doesn't sound like rocket surgery here, I know, but cultivating that culture of open dialogue, of involvement, of a situation or a culture where you can come and talk to me as your leader and you can come and give me ideas, great ideas for the future, you can come in and tell me of places where you're struggling, of concerns, of complaints, those kinds of things, just that open door policy and that, just cultivating that culture of being able to have conversations without there being judgment or ramifications is huge. And if you're a staff member, if you're one of those 17% that strongly agrees, my guess is that part of that could be that you feel like, hey, if I speak up, there's going to be ramifications or there's going to be consequences for me, and that's not a healthy atmosphere that you want to cultivate. So remember maintaining open communication. It's crucial for your staff cohesion, it's crucial for your staff morale, it's crucial for your organizational health morale, it's crucial for your organizational health and it's just absolutely crucial to eliminate future staff turnover and disunity.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Maintaining an open communication plan is going to bring your staff together and encourage unity in ways that you never dreamed possible. So where do you start? Yesterday you start. Yesterday we talked about starting quickly and not lollygagging around. If you know that there's areas where you can communicate better, you need to start doing that today, not tomorrow. Today and try to make constant improvement, day to day, month to month, year to year, in open communication with you and your staff.

Speaker 1: 8:49

And if you're a staff member, it may be risky and there may be consequences, but you need to try and do your best to open up that communication. And if the door is shut, if it's not an open door policy, sometimes you've got to knock on the door and start the conversation yourself. It's hard, but that open line of communication is critical. It's crucial to the health of your church and, if you're a staff member, to your individual health, the health of your family and health of your ministry at your current church. Okay, thanks so much. I hope this was helpful to you. I would love to hear your comments. You can reach me anytime at podcast at chemistry staffing podcast at chemistry staffing and head over to churchstaffassessmentcom to take our free 2024 church staff health assessment. Thanks so much.