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
The Benefits Package Your Church Can't Afford Not to Offer
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Why Churches Lose Staff
SPEAKER_00Most churches just simply it's the truth. You can't compete with corporate salaries. So sometimes you just have to get creative with the benefits that you pay your staff at your church. And today we're going to talk about some low-cost, high-impact perks that can attract and retain quality church staff without breaking your buttons. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders of Over Chemistry Staffing. And along with Matt Steen, my co-founder, and uh I'm glad that you're listening right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're here every weekday for you, Monday through Friday. And uh today is episode, believe it or not, 626. 626 episodes. And if you're a brand new listener, you've got probably uh three years worth of listening you can go back and catch up on. So, but today we're talking about benefits. And uh maybe you just lost another great staff member to a corporate job. Uh, maybe better salary, health insurance, retirement match. And honestly, you can't really blame them. And at the same point, you can't compete. You can't compete with uh what some corporations and companies and some non-church entities can pay. Your board keeps saying ministry isn't all about the money, and uh tell that to your kids who need college funds, right? And tell that to your spouse who's been
Professional Development As A Benefit
SPEAKER_00working two jobs to make ends meet. Here's the thing you might not be able to match their salary, but you can offer benefits that they can't get anywhere else. And that's what we're talking about today here on the podcast. Most churches think benefits only need only mean money that honestly they don't have. And what I'd like to talk about today is the professional development gold mine. And here's what I mean by that. Every staff member gets maybe $500 for conferences or books or courses, not just ministry stuff, but leadership, communication, project management. When you do that, you're investing in their future, not just their current role. Corporate jobs rarely offer this level of personal growth support, and they'll stay longer. Your employees, your church staff will stay longer when they're growing. But here's where it gets a little bit creative. So we we talked about hey, throw $500 or something into a fund to help them be a better leader. But you can also be creative. And some of these ways are some ways that that really don't cost, they're not a budget figure, okay? And these are more,
Creative Time Off And Life Balance
SPEAKER_00maybe we just call them life balance benefits, okay? Maybe summer Fridays from Memorial Labor, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Maybe you give maybe summer Friday afternoons off, maybe a four-day work week uh during school breaks uh to help them spend some more time with their kids. Another example, maybe one paid mental health day per quarter. No questions asked. My son's church does this. I don't know if they call it a mental health day or a personal growth day or whatever, but one day a quarter, he's expected. Everybody on staff is expected to go. We don't want to see you in your office. We don't want you to open up your email, we don't want you to do anything ministry related, and we don't care what you do on that day. Matter of fact, you have to take that day. Go do something. Go out to the lake, go fishing, go hunting, take a bike ride, whatever you want to do that refreshes you. That's one thing you can do a quarter. It doesn't cost you any uh budget. And I tell you what, when you have staff members that are healthy and refreshed, that one day off is gonna multiply itself into a lot of productivity. Maybe you give the first Monday of every month off for personal appointments. That way everybody can know when they can make their appointments. Study sabbaticals every seven years, even if it's just a couple weeks, those are some things. Most churches still do. I'm getting ready to release a sabbatical policy uh notebook that will hopefully help as you plan, maybe for your own
Stop Guilt And Support Real Needs
SPEAKER_00sabbatical or for sabbaticals on your team. Lap churches don't do this. Sabbaticals are only given out when somebody is just burned out or there's a job performance issue. These things that I've been talking about, these things cost you almost nothing, but they change everything. They can change everything for your church staff member. Now listen, some people will stay, let me put it this way. The common thought is that good people will stay for the mission alone. That's what that's what I've heard all of my career. Hey, if the mission is good, people will stay, people will be loyal. And they offer ministry experience like it pays the bills. Sometimes I've even seen churches that kind of guilt staff about wanting just that basic financial security. They compete on spiritual currency instead of practical support. Meanwhile, their best people are quietly updating their resumes and taking off. Wanting to serve God, I want you to hear me here. Wanting to serve God doesn't mean that your staff should struggle financially. Let me repeat that because that's really important. Wanting to serve God does not mean that your staff should struggle financially. Give some benefits that actually matter. Maybe some free financial planning sessions twice a year. Church covers 100% of their continuing education, flexible schedules around family needs, not just emergencies, professional coaching or maybe a counseling stipend, work from home options when it makes sense, paid time off for their school, kids' school events, maybe access to church counseling for their family at no cost. All of these kind of things, while they cost, bottom line for your budget is very small. The relational and the mental health value to your staff is huge. And they communicate one thing: they communicate, hey, Tom, Jane, whatever your name is, we value you as a whole person. You're not just on the payroll, you're not just somebody that we're leading for your ministry experience and to run ministries. We really value you as a person and we value
Benefits That Show Real Care
SPEAKER_00your family. Here's your bottom line for today. The best benefits usually are not about money. They're showing, they're about showing your staff that they matter beyond what they produce. And this is what we found on this year's church staff health assessment as well. Is most people, everybody wishes they made more salary-wise, but most people had accepted their salary. What they weren't comfortable with was their benefits package. And a lot of the feedback that we got from individual people that were not happy with their benefits package was that they really didn't feel cared for. They felt like the benefits were just based on what the church could afford, not their value as an employee.
Ask Staff And Get Help
SPEAKER_00So here's your challenge this week. Ask each staff member what would make your life easier that wouldn't cost as much money. And maybe you ask that to a couple of staff people, maybe you don't. But if you do, just ask it and listen. And you might be surprised what simple changes that people say you could make that would actually make their lives better and help you keep your best people. Because this is the truth. Your people are your ministry. Your people are your ministry. You need to invest in them creatively, and when you do, they will invest the best years that they have in their ministry in your mission. That's what I wanted to get off my chest for today. Uh, if you have any questions about benefits, uh pop me an email. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. This is something that we actually do for churches quite often. I'd love to do it for your church. Uh, it's one of the services that we offer. Is we go in and just look at your compensation of your entire staff, compare it to benchmarks of churches of your similar size, denomination, geographic, location, all of that. And also, we can do a benefits analysis as well to see what you're paying in benefits, give you some ideas of some of these kind of low-cost ideas to really help you give really good benefits so that your best people, sure, they buy into your mission, but they also feel like they're cared for and taken care of. And that's it for today. Hope you'll join me right here again tomorrow. You're listening to the Healthy Church.
