Resources & Results: How Your Church Can Empower Staff

Unlock the secrets to a thriving church staff with ChemistryStaffing.com's co-founder Todd Rhodes, our esteemed guest who brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. His expertise lies in nurturing vibrant work environments, and he's here to guide church leaders on how to equip their teams for success. Todd's insights are a must-hear for anyone seeking to boost staff satisfaction and effectiveness.

Todd and I journey through a realm of practical strategies, from auditing resources to investing in professional development, all designed to foster a culture where church staff members feel valued and supported. We dissect the critical role of communication and feedback in shaping a positive work atmosphere, and delve into the transformative power of technology in ministry. This episode is brimming with actionable advice that promises to enhance your team dynamics and cultivate a healthier church community.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Today we're discussing how to ensure your staff feels equipped with the necessary resources and tools to perform their roles effectively. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders of OpenChemisterStaffingcom and I don't know how you found this, but I'm glad you did. Here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast this week we're taking a look at healthy church staffs and particularly in the area of work environment. How do we create a work environment for our staff and at our church that will help our staff feel like they're being cared for and essential as part of our team? Last year, on our Healthy Church Staff Assessment, we found that about 73.5% of staff agree that their church is providing what they need to be able to do their job effectively, and that's really good. But there's still about 26.5% that are either dissatisfied or neutral, and our goal as leading church staff and our goal if you're a staff member listening to this is you want to be healthier, you want to be in that 73%, you want that 73% If you're in charge of staff, you want that 73% to grow. So in this episode, we're going to hopefully explore some practical strategies for addressing this gap of 73, 26, 73 and a half percent compared to 26 and a half percent gap, and how to make that 73% even better. Okay, so here are some strategies, five strategies that hopefully will help you to increase your score here in this work environment effort that we do every day, whether we want to or not, or whether we know that we're doing it or not. Okay, so here's the first strategy Conduct a resource audit, and I've told you several times during this series to do an audit, and by an audit, what I mean for you to do is just look at what you're doing right now.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Are you doing enough to make staff feel like they're being resourced as best they can? Assess your current resource allocation, identify areas for improvement. Now, this could include things like technology. Are there ways that you can utilize technology to help resource your staff members? Maybe it's training, maybe it's some specific ministry-specific or department-specific needs that you can beef up and make better. But the first step and the first strategy is just know where you are, know what you're doing currently, and it might be that you just need to ask your staff and say, hey, as you think about how we support you in your ministry role, what are some things that we do well and maybe what are some things that we can do better. And that's strategy number two is just simply gather some staff feedback, ask questions. Maybe it's implementing a regular survey, a focus group, but I really like the one-on-one conversation idea. Just as you talk with people, as you meet with people. If you're going to do it in a group setting, in a staff meeting, in a smaller group, have some conversations around hey, what could we do better in the area of resourcing you and giving you what you need to be able to do your job and your ministry better, and the more you can encourage this open communication and actually this active participation in some of this decision-making process is going to be really, really it's going to work to your benefit as you create a healthy church staff. Okay, so that's strategy number two is just gather staff feedback.

Speaker 1: 3:40

Strategy number three invest in some updated tools and training. There are and this is one area where Individual churches resource some do better than others, but in the Big C Church kind of community of tools and training that's available, there are a lot of things that you can do, a lot of resources that you can find that will help you to train, that will help you to coach, that will help you to mentor your staff. So stay current with those different opportunities different software platforms, different cohort groups, different coaching opportunities and we have coaching opportunities and mentoring opportunities that we help churches with all the time with their staff members chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to send you some more information on some of those things that we do. But allocate some time, but also allocate some money for any kind of new software or equipment or professional development program. We talked about professional development programs a lot last week, so if you missed that series last week on compensation and team dynamics the week before, I think there's some valuable things for there if you want to go back and listen to those as well.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Okay, strategy number four enhance your resource communication. Clearly communicate available resources. Strategy number three is find what those resources are. And then strategy number four is, once you decide on some of those resources, make them available. And sometimes you really have to be very how do I want to say this nicely you have to tell staff people more than once that, hey, we have this, we've invested in this resource and this resource is for you if you want to take advantage of it. So clearly communicate available resources, clearly communicate. Hey, we're doing this to help you be better and to help us be better as a church and make sure you give really good instructions and communicate how to access these new tools. Maybe even create if you've got a good list of these kind of going on create maybe a centralized hub, maybe on your internet or a webpage or just an internal document for staff so that they can find this information, so that they can know what kind of information is available, what kind of services are available, and they can request assistance in that way.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Okay, strategy number five and this is an ongoing thing, as all of these things are, but strategy number five is as best you can foster and a culture of empowerment. Encourage staff to take ownership of their resource needs, encourage them, through their feedback, to advocate for improvements and then, as we've said so many times, celebrate successes, share examples of how resources and how the things that you're doing have positively impacted both individuals' job performance and just the work environment at the church. So, closing off here today, equipping your church and your staff primarily with the tools and the resources that they need is really essential for job satisfaction, for productivity, and it will make a difference in your overall church effectiveness. And remember that building a well-equipped workspace it's an ongoing journey. You have to stay committed to continuous improvement. You have to keep the dialogue open at all times with your team improvement. You have to keep the dialogue open at all times with your team. But if you do this together, you can really empower your staff to make a long-lasting impact in your church and in your community. And I tell you what churches that provide a really healthy work environment not just physically but emotionally and spiritually, a really healthy work environment those are the churches that have long-term staff. Those are the churches that have staff that feel like they're a valued part of the team, and staff that really make a difference and move the dial in your ministry. So it's really important as we talk about creating a great work environment, man, I can't tell you how important that is.

Speaker 1: 7:50

If you have not taken this year's 2024 Healthy Church Staff Assessment, I would encourage you to do so. Hop on over to churchstaffassessmentcom and you can take it right now. It'll probably take you about 10, maybe 15 minutes to take that assessment. It's absolutely free and you'll get a free report at the end of it that tells you kind of how you did and how healthy we think you are. I think that is one way that we are providing a resource to you as a church staff person to help you along in your journey. If there's ever any way that I can help you or your church, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me anytime at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I hope you'll join us again tomorrow right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a great day.