Tag Archive - process

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5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make

Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years.

Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.

1. Poor Contact with Candidates

The number one mistake churches make is not staying in constant (weekly) contact with candidates. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the story that a candidate submitted a resume for a job and didn’t hear back from the church for more than a month. Not even a simple, “Thank you, we received your resume.” The candidate moves on, only to be contacted weeks later by the church asking them to move to the next step. Most candidates simply want to know where they stand in the process and what the next step is. When you don’t communicate regularly they perceive that as disinterest and they move on. The best candidates aren’t going to wait around.

2. Convenience Hires

Many times churches hire based on convenience, which leads to hiring too fast. Now they wouldn’t come out and say that, but that’s exactly what it is. Someone knows the “perfect candidate,” vouches for him or her and they’re quickly hired based on a recommendation without being properly vetted. I’ve also seen churches hire repeatedly from within, in fact some even pride themselves on this. Interestingly enough hiring repeatedly from the inside is a symptom of an organization that is stuck or in decline. They hire from the inside because, “You have to be in the organization to understand it,” they’re not open to new ideas or challenging the status quo. Now I’m not against hiring from within. But when hiring from within because we are comfortable with a known internal candidate trumps doing a search and hiring the best candidate, the mission of the church suffers.

3. No Process

Many churches simply don’t have the bandwidth or experience to build an effective recruiting and hiring process. At this point I’d recommend going with a search firm to help you in the process. Unfortunately far too many churches stumble along with no idea how to identify a proper profile and job description of what’s needed in the ideal candidate, no plan to build a candidate pool, no process to vet the candidates in a timely manner, and no clear process as to how to make a decision and offer the job to the winning candidate.

4. Staffing Void of Strategy

Before you start hiring people first think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you have a clear strategy in place to accomplish your mission, and are you staffing to that strategy? How are you reaching people outside of the church? How do you help people who are new to your church get connected? What’s your discipleship strategy? How do you help people new to the faith grow up in their relationship with Christ? You want your staffing structure to support your strategy because as the end of the day staffing should get you to your vision. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a staff member get hired and then only stay at a church for less than 2 years because the church hadn’t staffed to their strategy and it ends up being a bad fit.

5. No On-Boarding Process

Technically this happens after the official hire is made, but I just couldn’t leave it out. Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church essentially says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done. If you don’t intentionally think through the first days of their employment it can leave a sour taste for the remainder of their employment relationship with you. While they may love working at your church in 5 years, they’ll always remember their first impression as being negative.


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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You Just Made a Great Hire…Now What?

So you’ve just made what you believe is a great hire. The new Staff Member is talented, experienced, and they fit the culture of your church. They’re really going to help you get where you believe God wants you to go. They’re hired! What’s next?

Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church basically says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done. If you don’t intentionally think through the first days of their employment it can leave a sour taste for the remainder of their employment relationship with you. While they may love working at your church in 5 years, they’ll always remember their first impression as being negative. Below are 5 steps you can take to set your new hire up for success!

1. The First Day in the Office

The dating is over. Now you’re married. But just like marriages fall apart due to a lack of dating, employment relationships go south when employers stop pursuing their employees. Intentionally think through what you want their first experience and day in the office to be like. There is definitely standard first day orientation stuff like keys, security codes, computer, introductions, etc. A welcome basket, lunch with the team, Starbucks, and a personal card are all simple things that anyone can do. What can you do to make it positive and memorable? If you don’t plan for it to go well, then it won’t. You want them going home saying, “This is going to be a great place to work. I’m so glad I took this job!”

2. Public Communication Plan

How are you going to communicate the hire, when are you going to communicate it, and whom are you going to communicate it to? Does your church announce each new hire from the stage? Is it a simple verbal announcement, a printed piece, does it go on the website or social media, do you do a video? If you’re trying to figure out how to communicate the hire, a general rule of thumb to go by is, “The more public the role, the more public the communication.”

3. Manage Expectations

There are always expectations associated with a new hire; in a Church setting some of those expectations are realistic, many are not. Unfortunately most are unspoken, and usually have to do with growth and an extraordinary move of God. Having a clear conversation about realistic expectations over the first 90 days and the first year is critical for long-term success. By the way getting their family settled and acculturated to the church and the community should be at the top of the list if you want them on the team for the long run.

4. Opportunities for Wins

Identifying opportunities for wins is essential during the first 12 months of employment. Although your new staff member is incredible (that’s why you hired them), they don’t know what you know about your people and your context. So while they have “fresh eyes” that you need to leverage you also have knowledge that you need to use to set them up for success. To have your new team member experiencing wins in their first 12 months puts credit in their pocket and makes you look like you made a great hire. Which you did!

5. Build Leadership and Relational Equity

For the typical new church staff member there are 3 circles of influence that they need to build leadership and relational equity with. The church staff, their volunteer team, and the audience their particular ministry affects. Your job is to help them by putting them in the right situation with the right people to set them up for long-term success.

I’d love to hear about some other things you’ve done or have seen employers do to set new hires up for success over the first 90 days and first 12 months! Leave a comment!


Posted in Staffing

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The Blame Game

I recently caught up with Rick Calcutt to talk about his new book, “The Blame Game.” This book is a great resource for you if you’re trying to improve your weekend worship services, the creative process, or the relationship between your Pastor and Creatives.

It recently released on iBook, Amazon, and Nook! Click any of those links to get your hands on a copy and check out the interview below.

I’m giving away a free copy of “The Blame Game” to one of my readers! Just sign up here and I’ll let everyone know the winner next week!

 

 

Paul: Multiple times in this book you elude to what you call, “The Creative Process.” Doesn’t creativity just “happen” when you gather a group of creative individuals together? Can you actually plan for creativity?

Rick: “The Creative Process” is the system that a truly creative environment thrives on. It does so by normalizing, simplifying, and qualifying the creative workflow. This is essential because when the “day to day” and “week to week” tasks become creative habits, the creative team is allowed to focus more on their skill and passion. In the book I call those on the creative team (worship leader, video & audio techs, etc) Creatives. It is true that creativity happens naturally, but it is also a fact that you can plan for creativity. Creatives create, but a strong creative process gives structure and timeline that permits multiple Creatives, a creative team, to sync their creative schedules, efforts, and skills. The creative process found in “The Blame Game” equips the individual Creative and the creative team. It provides them adequate time for creation; clear schedules that remove confusion about deadlines; innovative possibilities that stimulate creative collaboration. Everyone’s happy. The Creatives get a great environment for creation. The Pastor, staff and church community receive impactful, inspiring, and clear worship experiences.

Paul: When most people hear churches talk about “Creative Arts” they automatically start thinking, “this is just a conversation for mega-churches.” But you assert that the principles in this book apply, “regardless of the size of your church”. How are the concepts in this book helpful to “normal” churches like the one I grew up in?

Continue Reading…


Posted in Creative Arts, Leadership

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Taking Steps to Make Vision Real

Typically churches aren’t stuck when it comes to the mission. Fortunately we don’t have to search very far in the Scriptures to discover God’s intent for the church to reach the nations. However where churches are notorious for being stuck is what comes next. Understanding and developing the steps that are necessary to take in order to make that vision reality. This is where strong leadership is needed. The task of leadership is to break a complicated process of moving from where you are to where God wants you to be into clear, simple, easy, natural steps that make vision real.

Clear:

If what you’re asking people to do is confusing, chances are they’ll move in a different direction than you intend for them to, or worse they won’t move at all. Your idea and message may seem obvious and clear to you, but it doesn’t matter how clear it is in your mind. You’ve got to figure out a way to make it clear to the people you want to take the step.

Simple:

If you want people to take a step that will move them and the organization in a preferred direction then it can’t be complicated. If you’ve ever put together IKEA furniture then you understand what I mean. It’s amazing how they can fit a 6×6 entertainment center in a box the size of a Rubix Cube, and for some reason there always seems to be parts left over! The best and quickest process is always a one step process.

Easy:

Let me be clear. By no means am I saying that helping people take steps towards making vision real is easy in the sense that it is painless, peaceful, or comfortable. Moving people towards a preferred future vision of reality (change) by its very nature is difficult and painful. Rather I’m asserting that easy solutions to complex problems lead to movement.

Natural:

If you are intentional in forming the culture of the organization then you will be creating an environment that tells people where they should naturally move towards and how they should behave. People should begin to see it as the natural obvious step they should move towards.


Posted in Leadership
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