How to Keep your Best Staff Members from Leaving

Monday, February 16, 2015

One in two church staff members is open to new employment. At the Unstuck Group were shocked to learn this during our latest research on church staffing and structure. At the same time, our experience confirms that many church staff members are simply unsatisfied. If it’s true that half of staff members are willing to leave, how can you possibly build and retain an effective ministry team?

We’re excited to share that our research also uncovered two characteristics of churches that lead employees to be twice as committed. While these are certainly not quick-fixes, if leaders focus on creating health in a couple of ways, they can significantly raise the level of commitment on their team. Consider these 2 areas of health that keep employees engaged:

1. Church Health and Growth

Staff members who believe their church is healthy and growing are half as likely to be open to new employment. It makes sense that players on a winning team would be more committed. Many church leaders look to leave when they see their church plateau or decline with little response from senior leaders. If you’re looking to keep great players on your team, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish your vision. Stay focused on growing your church while developing health.

2. Staff Health and Effectiveness

Great staff members take notice of the people around them. Just 31% of staff members who believe the rest of their team is healthy and effective are open to new employment. That is a significant increase in commitment! Yet many church staffs include one or more individuals causing relational unrest. If you’re unwilling to deal with problem-people on your team, it shouldn’t be surprising when others start leaving it.

Other ways to develop staff health and effectiveness include developing leaders, clarifying wins, setting clear goals, and aligning the structure with the vision. Each of these and more are discussed in depth in our Next Level Teams report, which we’re offering to you at no cost. Click here to download your copy and start increasing staff commitment today.

Posted in Staffing

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Get Your Church Staff & Org Structure Unstuck

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Do you feel like your team is achieving its full potential?

Staffing and structure is an area of ministry that The Unstuck Group (the consulting group I’m a part of) is consistently asked about. Regardless of a church’s size or success, few leaders feel like they fully have the right people in the right seats. We want to get church staffing and structure unstuck. We believe that the quality of the team significantly impacts a church’s level of impact. And we’re ready to see your staff start running on all cylinders. That’s why we’re partnering with Vanderbloemen Search Group to seek better solutions.

We need new truths about church staffing and structure. Conventional answers to church staffing problems don’t seem to be cutting it. Today’s challenges will only be overcome by new truths about staffing. Here are a few of the questions we’re looking to answer:

Where do growing churches find new staff members?
How does the size and health of a senior leadership team impact the effectiveness of a church?
Are larger or smaller churches more efficient with staffing?
How does a church’s structure affect its growth or decline?
In multisite churches, what is the most effective staff structure?

We need your help. To uncover new truths, we must explore new research. If you are on a church staff, your experience is vital to this initiative. Will you take the next 8 minutes to complete a short survey? When you do, you’ll earn free early-access to everything we discover. We’re excited to see what happens when churches across the nation get their staff and structure unstuck!

Click to take the Staffing and Structure Survey

Photo Credit: Darwin Bell via Compfight cc

Posted in Staffing

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How Much Should Your Church Pay Your Pastor?

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

A couple of years ago I wrote a post called, “How Much Should We Pay Our Pastor,” that went on to become a pretty popular post, primarily because most churches have no idea what a fair compensation package is for their pastor or any member of their church staff. Fortunately for Churches seeking to answer this question some new data has just been released this week!

The 2014 Large Church Salary Report conducted by Leadership Network in partnership with the Vanderbloemen Executive Search Firm has just been released to the public. The largest survey of its kind ever conducted, 727 churches of over 1,000 people in attendance from 42 states and Canada participated to provide more information and more specific information than ever before available. Follow this link to get your hands on a copy of the survey results! Here are a couple of facts that caught my eye along with the top 10 findings info-graphic below.

The larger the church the younger it is. In other words, churches in the 1,000-person range have on average been around for about 40 years. Churches in the 10,000-person range on average have been around about 25 years.
The younger the church, the more likely it is to be multisite.
74% of large churches are growing.
One of the things I really liked about the way Leadership Network chose to show the information was that they showed the 25%, 50% (or median), and 75% instead of simply showing the average. These numbers offer better benchmarks because they minimize the influence of extremely high or low salaries.

Related Resources:

Interested in a Custom Compensation Analysis by Vanderbloemen Search Firm
Interested in a Compensation Study done for churches under 1,000?

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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5 Articles that will Help You Make Vision Real

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Thank you for making May a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing about how helpful different articles have been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 “4 Indispensable Truths about the Art of Planning”

All of us have been in planning meetings before with a team that seemed to have had a break through moment. You know, that moment when everyone says, “Yes! That’s exactly the direction we need to move, and that’s exactly how we need to get there from here!” There was energy, excitement and unity as everyone left the meeting. But the more time that passed after the meeting dismissed the more that energy that was there faded and the less movement towards actualizing the plan took place. In fact a large majority of planning meetings don’t actually provoke much real change in most churches and organizations. Here are 4 reasons why many of your plans aren’t really getting you anywhere:

#2 “Leadercast 2014 Recap”

If you missed the 2014 Leadercast, then you missed some great content, great speakers, and incredible ideas that have the potential to shift your thinking when it comes to leadership. But no worries! Now you’ve got all the notes to every session right here at your fingertips for free! Hope you enjoy!

#3 “Take the 2014 Church Budgeting Survey”

Participate in the survey & get a free copy of the Executive Summary! Get answers to questions like:

What percentage of our budget should go towards Staffing, Operations, Ministry, and Missions?
How much debt do churches of similar size carry?
Do these percentages change as the size of our church changes over time?
How do different churches go about building their annual budget?

#4 “New Leadership Coaching Networks Launching this Fall”

Over the last 3 years of working with The Unstuck Group one of the most rewarding and enjoyable things I’ve had the opportunity to do is facilitate leadership coaching networks for Sr. Leaders serving in local churches around the country. I’m excited to let you know that I’m receiving applications for my next coaching network beginning this fall. Be sure to get your application in before the deadline of August 15. A couple of the spots have already been filled so space is limited!

#5 “Helping Your Church get Unstuck”

Churches get stuck for all kinds of reasons. It’s okay to get stuck, it’s just not okay to stay that way. There’s too much Kingdom potential on the line. That’s why 2014 needs to be the year that your church finally gets unstuck! At the Unstuck Group we help churches grow their impact through church consulting and coaching experiences designed to focus vision, strategy, and action. At the Unstuck Group we don’t just offer consulting solutions. We help churches get unstuck!

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership