The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
From 'Stagnant' to 'Supported': Helping Church Staff Grow
Unlock the secret to a thriving church staff with me, Todd Rhodes, as I delve into why personal and professional development shouldn't just be a consideration but a key part of your church's strategy. Discover how a staggering 41% of church staff are yearning for more support in their growth and what you can do to turn those numbers around. This episode promises to equip leaders and staff members with innovative strategies that foster engagement, motivation, and loyalty, transforming your church into a hub of continuous learning.
Embark on a journey through the world of tailored development plans, the power of mentorship, and the art of aligning staff aspirations with their roles within the church. I'll share five actionable ideas that go beyond generic advice, focusing on the unique contributions and potential of each individual in your ministry. From the significance of annual evaluations to the benefits of stretching assignments, this episode is an essential listen for anyone committed to nurturing a culture of trust and respect in their church community.
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Hello there and welcome to the Healthy Church Staff podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm really excited that you're joining us today. We've been talking all week about healthy church staffs and particularly about compensation levels and what we learned in our healthy church staff assessment that we did last year. We're currently doing one this year. I'll invite you to be a part of that at the end of this podcast, so stick around for that link. But today we're going to discuss a crucial aspect of job satisfaction and long-term success, and it's also a benefit, part of a benefits package that churches should at least consider giving to employees and staff members, and that's personal and professional development. And last year we found from our church staff health assessment that about 59% of church staff feel supported in their personal and professional growth as a church staff member. So 59% isn't bad, but, as we've said in a lot of these benchmarks that we've looked at, that means that 41% are either dissatisfied or neutral when it comes to how their church supports their personal and professional development. So today what I want to do is look at some innovative strategies for ensuring that all of your staff feel more supported and more empowered to grow. Okay, so before we dive into strategies, let's take just a moment to understand why investing in staff development is so important. So this is going to be good.
Speaker 1:If you're listening and you are a leader that is over staff, then I think this is an important to be good. If you're listening and you are a leader that is over staff, then I think this is an important podcast for you. If you're a staff member and you're just wondering how does my church doing on staff development, this may be an interesting listen for you as well. But here's the premise of what I want to say today is that when staff feel that their church is committed to their growth, they're more likely to be engaged, they're more likely to be motivated and they're more likely to be loyal. If you're a church staff member, this If your church regularly finds ways to invest in you personally and professionally you are going to be more engaged and more motivated and more loyal. Each staff member brings skills and perspectives to their work, which can lead to this increased innovation and productivity, particularly when they're invested in Supporting staff development really demonstrates that you, as a leader and you as a church, value them not just as employees, but also as individuals that have aspirations and potential, and this can really help foster the culture of trust and respect and really a culture of continuous learning in your church.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now that we've set that aside, let's talk about how can we ensure that all of our staff feel supported in their personal and their professional growth. I want to give you five different ways that I think will be helpful to you, that you can help make this better in your church. Right, and we're going off that number of 59%. If your church is normal, feel that your church does a pretty good job, but how do you make it better for the four in 10 that say no, I wish my church did more. Here's some ideas.
Speaker 1:Idea number one consider looking at each staff member individually, and by that what I mean is consider implementing some personalized development plans. Work with each staff member and again, this takes a little bit of work to create this, but you really ideally create a tailored development plan that is going to align with their goals and with their interest and with their role at the church. This could mean that you could provide training or mentoring or coaching. Maybe you could stretch some assignments that would, by that, give them some assignments that are going to stretch them in areas that they want to be stretched, maybe providing them with some additional growth opportunities. This is a great way and the best time to do this and to have this conversation a logical time to do it would be during an annual evaluation period. Say, hey, what are you interested in? How could we help you become a better staff member? How could we help train or mentor what conferences might be a good opportunity for you? Those kind of personalized plans not only speak to increasing staff contentment and just feeling like they're being built into staff, but they also allow the staff member to know that you're thinking about them personally and creating something for them specifically. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, does it have a big payoff? Absolutely. So that's the first idea.
Speaker 1:First strategy to make things better than what they are now is consider implementing some personalized development plans. Second idea and this will cost you a little bit as part of your benefits package, but consider offering a professional development stipend. Okay, provide each staff member with an annual stipend that they can use for professional development activities of their choice. Maybe they want to attend a conference, maybe they want to take a course, maybe they want to purchase some books, those kind of things, but just and maybe they use it, maybe they don't, but I don't know. A lot of churches do budget for this and a lot of churches don't have it in a budget but offer it from time to time. But I would say, make it as standard as a part of a compensation package. As you can make it as standard as a part of a compensation package as you can. That looks really good to bringing new staff members on. But it also is a great perk for your current staff is just offering some kind of a continuing education credit or a stipend where they're going to be reimbursed with for some kind of professional development activity. I think that could be really great.
Speaker 1:Idea number three strategy number three create or join a peer learning program. You can do this internally, organically, just pairing staff members together, that maybe staff members that have kind of complementary skills or experiences, so that they can learn from each other. Maybe you take a really experienced staff member with a more junior staff member, somebody that has a lot of experience, with somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience. Help them to do maybe some job shadowing, some skill sharing sessions, maybe some peer coaching. That can be done just in your current framework. It wouldn't even cost you any money or very little money. But that is a way to pair staff members together, to sharpen iron, to make each staff member better. The more seasoned staff member can learn from the newer and younger staff member, and vice versa as well. So that's strategy number three. You can create an internal peer learning network.
Speaker 1:Number four strategy consider launching a leadership development track. Maybe you can identify high potential staff and offer them targeted leadership development opportunities, maybe executive coaching, which we do some of that here at Chemistry Staffing. You can reach out to me anytime if you've got a staff member that needs a little bit of leadership coaching or mentoring. We do that with churches all the time. You can reach out to me at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd be happy to talk with you about that and what we offer. You can offer executive coaching. You can offer leadership workshops, maybe some cross-functional projects. But I find that this is really important just having some kind of a leadership development or a promotion track, particularly for younger people on your staff.
Speaker 1:What used to be? You'd hire a youth pastor and that was really as far as you could go in an organization. You would be a youth pastor or you wouldn't have a job. A lot of times now new, younger candidates and younger people on your team are looking okay. So I feel God's called me to be a youth pastor, but I don't know that I want to be a youth pastor in five years. I'd love to be at this church, but I'm not sure I want to be a youth pastor. So, just looking for kind of some cross ways that you can move people from one position to another, maybe a leadership development track could really work well for you so that hey, yeah, we hired you as a youth pastor, but maybe we're a few years away from hiring a campus pastor. Let's put you on that campus pastor leadership development track so that they know that there's, hey, there's a kind of a clear path in the future for being able to continue to do different things at your church or your organization. So that's idea number four. And then finally, strategy, or idea number five is celebrating growth and learning Regularly, showcase and celebrate examples of staff development, particularly if you're doing strategy one, two, three or four and people are they're doing their individualized plans or they're going to a conference.
Speaker 1:Or they're doing their individualized plans or they're going to a conference or they're doing some job shadowing or mentoring or peer coaching. Any of those be sure that you share when things go well. Share success stories. Sharing success stories in team meetings or featuring staff accomplishments really reinforces the value that you are placing on continuous growth in the organization, but also reinforces the value to other staff that you are legitimately taking steps to build into people on your staff. Of course, just like everything else, implementing these strategies can come with some challenges. Sometimes there's limited budgets or time constraints, sometimes there's just plain old resistance to change. But the benefits of investing in staff development even if you have to jump over some hurdles to get there, it's going to far outweigh the costs of doing nothing.
Speaker 1:So, as we wrap up today, here's what I would like to encourage you to do today or this week Start a conversation with your staff about what their development needs and aspirations are. And if you don't want to have that conversation now, make sure you build this in when you do staff evaluations and we're going to talk about annual performance evaluations in a very near future episode here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, so stay tuned for that, but plan on having this conversation with each staff member about their development needs and their aspirations. Brainstorm ways to enhance what you're currently offering. Brainstorm ways that you can introduce new initiatives. And remember that investing in your staff's growth, it's not just a nice thing to do, it's an important thing to do, it's an imperative, it's a strategic imperative for the long-term health and success of your staff and the long-term health and success of your church ultimately. So that is what I would like to share today on what we learned from our Healthy Church Staff Assessment last year, on how you can build into staff development.
Speaker 1:And if you have not taken this year's Church Staff Health Assessment, I would love for you to take that. Taking this year's church staff health assessment, I would love for you to take that. It's open just for about another week, I think a week and a half before we close it down. So snooze, you lose, you won't be able to take it after that, after we close it down. So go to churchstaffassessmentcom, take you about 10 or 15 minutes to take the actual assessment. We'll send you a customized report of what we learned from your answers and how you're doing on a church staff health scale after you take that assessment. So head over to churchstaffassessmentcom and take that today and, as always, thank you for listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. You can reach me anytime just by email at podcast at chemistrystaffmanagercom, and I hope you'll join us again for the next Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
