The Performance Review That Doesn't Make Everyone Want to Hide
•Episode 591
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This episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, hosted by Todd Rhoades, focuses on the challenges and strategies for conducting effective performance reviews in a church setting. Todd emphasizes the importance of regular, constructive feedback over annual reviews, advocating for a culture of growth through specific, actionable input rather than vague, spiritual language.
• Performance reviews are often dreaded and poorly executed in church settings.
• Common pitfalls include either overly positive or negative feedback without helping staff grow.
• Avoid vague, spiritual language that doesn't offer specific, actionable guidance.
• Regular check-ins with staff, such as monthly conversations, are encouraged instead of annual surprises.
• Start performance discussions with specific achievements before addressing areas for growth.
• Ensure staff feel valued, are growing, and know you believe in their future.
• Create a healthy evaluation culture by having informal, consistent interactions with staff.
• Offer of a detailed performance review template available from Chemistry Staffing.
know when you do performance reviews in your church, but we're gonna talk about performance reviews on today's healthy church death podcast. You know, here your youth pastor just asked if he needs to bring a lawyer to the meeting. Well, hopefully not. Maybe your worship pastor's suddenly updating his resume because he knows he's got a review. Maybe your admin assistant keeps asking what in the world she did wrong. Meanwhile, you're just staring at a generic template that you downloaded somewhere. Wondering how to evaluate somebody's heart for ministry on a scale of one to ten. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. If you struggle with either receiving a performance review or actually, we're going to talk today about giving performance reviews, you're in the right place for today, because that's what we're talking about. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over chemistry staffing. And I'm so glad that you're here today for this discussion on performance reviews. You know, it's kind of a dreaded dance, right? Performance reviews kind of get a bad rap in the church world. Well, really, in every kind of performance review. I don't know that anybody loves to do them. But in the church world, they've kind of become this weird ritual, right? Either you're way too nice, you know, you're amazing, keep doing what you're doing, you're great, you're awesome. Or we dump a worth a year's worth of frustration in one really, really awkward conversation. And neither one actually helps anybody grow. And your staff leaves either confused or elated or absolutely crushed. So that's just part of the problem, though. There's
there's really a deeper, deeper problem here. We hide behind spiritual language all the time in the church instead of being specific. And you know what? We do this all the time when we give performance reviews and when you receive performance reviews. We just hide behind this spiritual language. We try to be nice, but we're trying to be nice rather than being specific. And it really doesn't help anybody, right? You know, hey, pray about your leadership style is not actionable feedback. Trust God with your time management doesn't really help anybody. We think adding, you know, these Jesus words makes vague feedback somehow more helpful to staff, but it doesn't. It doesn't. In a matter of fact, it makes it a lot more frustrating. Now listen, you genuinely want to help your staff grow spiritually and professionally, right? That's a great thing, that's a beautiful thing. But good intentions really have to have good systems. Good intentions have to have good systems. So how do you have this conversation? How do you do, how do you, how do you give performance reviews? How do you receive performance reviews in a way that that makes a difference? Well, I
think it starts a lot of times with the growth conversation, at least that's what I call it. Start with wins. Name specific things that they're crushing. You know, even even if the overall job performance review is not overly positive, start with something positive. There has to be something. There has to be, right? There has to be. Find something that's a win. Name something specific that this person that your staff member is just crushing. Not, you know, you're great with people or you know, something like that. Make it really specific. You know, hey, the way that you handled that Henderson family crisis was incredible. It was pastoral, it was wise. You you knocked it out of the park there. And then you can address one growth edge, not seven problems, just one. Okay? Make it about their future, not about your frustration. Ask something like, what would help you win even more in this area? Then
you can have kind of the ongoing rhythm conversation. Stop saving everything for the annual review. Don't wait until December 29th to do your annual review and bring up every gripe and complaining and moaning that you had of the past year. You really need to do this on a regular basis. You don't even have to call it performance. But you do need to have at least some quick monthly check-ins. You know, hey, how are you feeling about your role right now? What's working? What's not working? How can I help you succeed? That will allow you to make the formal review a summary of all those kind of monthly check-ins rather than a surprise.
And then when you leave your performance review, okay, let's cut to the chase here. What should your staff go away knowing? And I think there are three things. They're valued, they're growing, and you believe in their future. Okay? They're valued, they're growing, and you believe in their future. They're not perfect, but they're valued. They're not finished, but they're on the right track. That's the kind of review that builds culture, healthy culture, instead of breaking it. So your bottom line for today a good performance review should make your staff want to stay and grow, not polish their resume and run. And don't use performance reviews, annual one-time a year performance reviews to bring up everything that's wrong, everything that's been on your mind for the past 12 months that you've not said to them. That needs to be done on a consistent, probably monthly, even kind of in micro doses on a weekly basis. So here's
your challenge for this week. I want you to schedule a 15-minute coffee with one staff member. Okay? You're not gonna call it a performance review. Don't even don't say that. And just ask them, how are you feeling? How are you feeling about your role right now? And and then listen. Just shut up and listen. You know what? If if you say, Todd, they're gonna think something's up if I schedule a 15-minute coffee with them, that might be part of your culture problem at your church. If your staff don't get your attention, if they think by wanting to have a conversation with you that something's up, that they're in trouble, or that they're on the line, then that says probably a lot about your culture. So just find one staff person, take them out to coffee, get off get off site, and just ask them how how you feel about your role right now, and then listen. That's really how healthy evaluation culture really starts. And you can start that in April, even if your annual performance reviews aren't scheduled until November or December. You know, your staff really needs to know that they matter. So start there, and believe it or not, everything else gets a little bit easier when you start there. All right, that's it for today.
I do have a resource for you. If you would like to ask about really kind of cool template that I put together specifically on performance reviews, just pop me an email, podcast at chemistry staffing.com, and I can get you the information on how you can how you can find that, how you can order that for you and your team. It's it's actually a pretty long resource. It's got templates, it goes all the way through the performance evaluation process and helps you set up. If you don't have a really good process that you like, I think, I think you'll like this one. So just reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. If you would like interest, if you're interested in that at all, I'll send you over the link and you can take a look to see if that's something you'd like to utilize at your church for your team. All right, that's
it for today. I'll be back here. We're here every day, Monday through Friday, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. And I hope that you'll join me right here again tomorrow. Have a break.
