The Perfect Fit: Does Your Church Job Utilize Your Talents?

Unlock the secret to genuine fulfillment in church staff roles as we delve into the groundbreaking revelations from the 2023 church staff health assessment survey. Imagine the satisfaction of knowing your job is more than a title—it's where your passions and skills converge to create an impact. That's the reality for 77% of surveyed church team members, and we're digging into the vital role of intentional leadership practices that make this possible. But what about the 11% feeling out of place, or the 12% perched on the fence of uncertainty? We've got actionable strategies for church leaders to turn these numbers around, ensuring that each team member isn't just filling a seat but thriving in their calling. 

Tomorrow's episode promises to be equally transformative, as we introduce the 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment tool—an essential, cost-free resource for elevating your team's well-being. And we'll tackle the power of a Culture of Appreciation, highlighting the undeniable influence of recognition in the transformation of overlooked staff into indispensable, celebrated members of the church community. So, join us and be part of the conversation that's reshaping job satisfaction and spiritual health in churches everywhere.

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.

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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

Hey everyone, welcome to this edition of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, and today we're going to tackle another important topic. We've been in the middle of a series this week. Last week was on communication and church staff health. Today and this week it's on job satisfaction and church staff health. Today and this week it's on job satisfaction and church staff health, and today we're going to be looking at the topic of are we all in the right roles? Are some of us just fitting into the church staff equivalent of being a square peg in a round hole? We're going to dive a little bit deeper into church roles this morning and whether the church is really utilizing the talents of each one of our staff in a great way. This is how we phrased the question last year, not really a question, a statement.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Last year on our 2023 church staff health assessment, we asked and received responses from over a thousand church staff people. This is a statement we gave them. I feel like my current role aligns with my skills and my interests, and I was really rather encouraged and discouraged at the same time if that's even a possibility at the responses back, because it'll either have you nodding in agreement or questioning your life choices, I guess, when you answer that statement. But 77% of all church staff said that they feel that their current role on their church staff aligns well with both their skills and their personal interests. So that's a whole bunch of individuals that are probably singing the Hallelujah Chorus every day on their way to work. I don't know if they're doing that or not, but 77% of the people feel pretty good about their current role aligning with their skills and their interests. 77%, that's pretty good. But what about the rest? 11% are not feeling that match at all. Matter of fact, they either disagree or strongly disagree with that statement. So that's 11% we're going to talk about here in a second. And then also there's 12% that are neutral. They're sitting on the fence. They're probably thinking some days, maybe this fits, other days, maybe this job isn't for me, it doesn't fit where I'm at personally, or I don't find real fulfillment in it.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Let's start with taking a look at those 77%. For those people that are happily aligned, it seems like leadership in these churches has been doing a fantastic job. Or maybe they just got lucky with a batch of resumes that they match perfectly with the job descriptions. But I'm just kidding. It's more than just luck here, guys. It's about thoughtful hiring, but it's more than hiring. It's also about effective role development, but it's more about effective role development, also about effective role development. But it's more about effective role development. It's also about ongoing career management that will keep everybody not just busy, but busy and active, doing the things that they're interested in and that they excel at.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Now these people, these 77% of the people they're usually pretty easy to spot. They're the people on your team that are engaged and if you're not in leadership, you're a staff member the reports to spot. They're the people on your team that are engaged and if you're not in leadership, you're a staff member that reports to leadership. If you're in the 77% or not, because you're engaged, you're joyful. If you're in leadership. These type of people, these 77%, they contribute, they have ideas, they have passion and, quite honestly, they just they do good work. They're good team members.

Speaker 1: 3:25

So those are the 77%, but let's take a look at the 11%. One in 10 people say that they've been handed a tennis racket to play football, and we hear this quite often from church staff people, and we heard it on the assessment last year that they don't really know what their role is, and sometimes that's fair. Sometimes that's not necessarily fair, but they feel like they're on the team, but they're on the wrong team or they're in the wrong seat. So it's crucial, if you're in leadership, to dig into these mismatches. Maybe some skill assessments, some retraining programs, even some going over with the individual staff member, their job description, to make sure that everybody's not just on the bus, everybody's on the bus, but making sure that they're in the right seat.

Speaker 1: 4:13

So these 11% that are and even going into the neutral group that we're going to talk about in a second maybe they're just not in the right seat. Could be and this is a secret, but it could be that they were never in the right seat. Maybe they were not hired for the right position. Maybe they don't know, like we said, they might be playing with a tennis racket, a game of football with a tennis racket. Maybe they don't know what their seat is or what seat you even want them in. Maybe they've changed since they were hired. Maybe their area of focus has changed, maybe their area of passion has changed, maybe they're just bored.

Speaker 1: 4:46

But the goal here, if you're in leadership, is to get them engaged and to get them healthy in order for them to be able to make not only great advances for you and your team, but just also for them to be healthy spiritually. That's part of your role as a leader as well is the spiritual care of your staff. So those are the people that we need to address, that are in that 11%, that just don't feel fulfilled. It's really the job and really an opportunity for leadership to step in and help them to figure out exactly what their role is. If there's a role for them at the church the neutral group what do you do about the fence sitters? Easy, easy enough, right. It's hard, I know, but engaging this group. You just have to communicate with them. You have to provide opportunities for maybe a little bit of experimentation If they're maybe bored or maybe not quite doing what they're most passionate about, maybe some job shadowing, maybe some structured career planning things. It's almost. I've not used these, but I understand. In some of the dating apps you swipe left or swipe right. It's almost like swiping left or swiping on some of the job tasks that they're doing, until you can help them find their sweet spot and, as a leader, that's part of what we need to do with all of our staffs is help them find a way that they're going to be able to, number one, feel fulfilled but, number two, be able to contribute the best to the leadership of the church.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So we've talked before and I'll say it again this is not something that happens overnight. This is something that you really need to have an improvement plan for. You want to be better next week than you were this week. You want to be better next month than this month and better next year than last year, and you just need to have a system set up to be able to do that. It could be as simple as setting up some feedback mechanisms to gauge job satisfaction just one-on-one meetings or maybe even a staff survey to say, hey, how's everybody doing? It could be that you need to start redesigning some jobs to better suit some of your staff strengths.

Speaker 1: 6:48

And here's the thing A lot of times we as leaders know when somebody's a little off the rails and by off the rails I don't mean it's their fault, it's just that they're not operating in their strengths. Maybe we're asking them to do some things that we need to have done, but they're not maybe the person to do it. Sometimes we know those things are happening and we just stick our heads in the sand. You can't stick your heads in the sand here. It's not ever going to get better without a plan. That's something I help churches do, and if this is something that you would like to enlist my help as an outside advisor for you and your team, I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you and do that. But that's just a side note. You can always reach out to me anytime at podcastchemistrystaffingcom.

Speaker 1: 7:32

But you really do need to have a plan, because things don't change. Things that you measure change and we really need to have a set plan, a career development plan for each one of your staff members. Make sure you should know, as a leader, how each one of your staff members is doing. Are they aligned, are they passionate, are they excited? What are they going through personally that might be affecting their job performance? All of those things are really vitally important and if you need some help doing that, I might be able to help you.

Speaker 1: 8:01

One thing as we close out today's podcast we are talking this week about job satisfaction. Last week, we did a whole series on communication. Go back and listen to that if you want to. I think there's some really helpful tips on communication that you can get out of last week's podcast. But we have just recently opened our 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment. We would love to have you take it. It's absolutely free, both you and members of your team. If you could take it, that would be great. It is absolutely free 50 questions and at the end you'll get an email that tells you a score of 100 on how we think you're doing, based on church staff health criteria that we've set up. You can take that absolutely free of charge at churchstaffassessmentcom. Churchstaffassessmentcom. Okay, that's it for today's edition of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I hope you'll join us again tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to be talking about the topic is From Overlooked to Essential, creating a Culture of Appreciation. Really important stuff tomorrow on the podcast. Hope you'll join us right here.