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
Communication in Church Staff Teams
Are you ready to transform the communication dynamics within your church staff? On this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we unpack the insights from the 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment, uncovering a subtle yet significant shift in communication satisfaction among church staff teams. Noticeably, there's an uptick in neutral responses, potentially signaling a creeping sense of complacency or disengagement. We share actionable strategies to revitalize those all-important communication channels, from fostering open dialogue and setting clear expectations to celebrating team victories, ensuring every voice feels heard and valued.
Beyond just identifying problems, we offer practical support and solutions tailored to your church's unique needs. Ever wondered how expert guidance could transform your team’s communication? Our roster of experienced mentors and coaches is ready to assist you in crafting effective communication plans and addressing staffing challenges. Plus, don't miss out on downloading your free copy of the Healthy Church Staff Assessment for 2024—a vital resource to help you understand and enhance your church’s staff health. Join us for an episode brimming with insights, support, and real-world solutions to elevate your church staff's communication and engagement.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Hey there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes. I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and your host here on the podcast. So this week and next week on the podcast if you've missed this week so far, I would encourage you to go back and listen. You can subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you're listening right now, Go back and listen to the first three episodes.
Speaker 1:This week we're unpacking our church staff health assessment from 2024 that released on Monday of this week and this week and next week we're going to unpack some of the things that we found, some of the high-level findings from our church staff health assessment in 2024. Compare a little bit to what we found in 2023 as well. You can grab your copy. It's absolutely free. It's a very substantial download PDF I think it's 85 pages or so with all the findings from over 1,200 church staff people that we assessed in our assessment this year. You can download your copy right now at chemistrystaffingcom. Slash staff health. All right, today we're going to talk about communication within church staff teams and they say communication is key. I say that all the time. We said that to our kids all the time. We said it at our church all the time. Communication is key, and that couldn't be more true in the context of ministry. The way that we communicate or the way that we don't communicate can make or break our effectiveness as a team. So we're going to take a little closer at what our 2024 assessment said about this and how we can improve.
Speaker 1:A couple of high top level findings from the report is, first of all, neutral communication satisfaction. So one interesting finding that we found in the 2024 church staff health assessment is the subtle increase in neutral responses regarding communication satisfaction among church staff. Okay, what does that mean? We asked a number of questions specifically about communication and what we found from our 2023 to 2024 assessment. The scores were almost identical. It was almost uncanny that the communication scores overall were identical, but and here's the big but is that while the scores stayed relatively the same, they were skewed differently. Okay, so the number of people that gave neutral responses rather than strongly agree or strongly disagree there are a lot more neutral responses. So there is a shift. Even though the overall score stayed the same, there was a shift in the response of the question. So this indicates that while things aren't necessarily bad, they're not necessarily stellar either.
Speaker 1:Here's what our hypothesis is, and it's something that we think that we have our eye on, okay, nationally. So I think that it would be wise for you and your church to keep an eye on this as well. This neutrality, this move while the scores are still the same, but the move to giving a neutral answer, could point to a sense of complacency or disengagement. Okay, A staff might feel that communication is just meh, meh okay, which in a church environment, can lead to misunderstandings and lack of alignment. If I was to analyze this a little bit, I would say effective communication is really it's got to be the foundation for any of our successful teams. It's not just about getting the messages across, it's about creating an environment where everybody feels heard and valued and engaged. So when you have this neutrality rising up in communication satisfaction, it can be a red flag. It can be a precursor of what we might be seeing. Things might be getting better, Things might be getting worse, but you've got a lot of people that are telling us that they're in the middle. It might mean that people maybe are just going through the motions, which can lead to bigger issues down the road. So we need to move from okay communication to really effective, engaging, dynamic communications.
Speaker 1:What can you do? What can you do over the next year to improve communication in your teams? Here are some ideas, and these are communication is one of those things that we just do. We don't concentrate on, we just do, and everybody's church has a little different communication DNA, but I don't know very many churches that concentrate or really try to make it better. It just is what it is.
Speaker 1:What can you do in the next year? Well, you can concentrate on making it better. In small ways, We'll move the neutrals to a better place, and that, in the long term, is going to be good for you. So how can you do that? First of all, you can re-energize communication channels. Take a fresh look at how you're communicating. Are you relying too much on emails or meetings? Maybe you need to consider introducing new platforms or methods that might be a little bit more engaging for your team. I was a part of a church once where you would go into the office and everyone's door would be closed and they would email each other. They would literally email each other rather than talking to each other, and the staff communication at that church was not great. Okay, so maybe you just need to re-energize your communication channels and take an audit and see if there's ways that you can make it better a little bit more personal.
Speaker 1:A second way is to foster some open dialogue, maybe create some spaces where staff feel safe to express their thoughts and ideas and concerns. We saw this a lot of times in the communication areas where the neutral areas were. When we ask questions, I feel safe in sharing my concerns or I feel like they listen to my ideas. You want people to not be neutral on that. So open some, foster some open dialogue and set some clear expectations and make sure that everybody understands their roles and responsibilities and goals of the team. Clear job descriptions and clear communication about expectations can really present, prevent a lot of misunderstanding.
Speaker 1:And then, finally I mentioned this all the time, but we need to do it more we need to celebrate our wins and successes. Don't just move on to the next thing. When you see life change, when somebody on your team hits it out of the park or hits a solid double man, celebrate that Regularly, acknowledge those successes. So communication Now here's the bottom line. It's the lifeblood of a healthy team. If your communication is not good, your team will not be healthy.
Speaker 1:And if we want to move from being just okay, if you want to move your staff people from being just neutral to being really effective, we need to be really intentional on how we communicate with each other. So here's your call to being really effective we need to be really intentional on how we communicate with each other. So here's your call to action this week have a conversation with your team about how you can improve communication. It might be a simple change that makes a big difference, but you won't know if you don't ask.
Speaker 1:Reach out to me anytime if you've got anything that you need some help with, staffing-wise or even communication-wise. We have some people on our team that are great mentors and coaches that can help you with a communication plan. Or you say, Todd, our communication really sucks in our church and we need help getting this turned around. We can help you do that. So reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom and also download your free copy of the Healthy Church Staff Assessment for 2024. You can do so at chemistrystaffingcom. Slash staff health. We will see you again tomorrow.
