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
More than Coworkers: Does Your Church Foster Connections?
Ready to unlock the secret sauce for a happy and enduring church staff? Look no further! I'm Todd Rhodes, and on the latest Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're wrapping up our insightful series with a candid conversation on the power of social bonds among colleagues. This episode is brimming with real-life stories and data-driven advice from our extensive Healthy Church Staff Assessment. Learn how to craft a workplace culture that doesn't just attract talent but makes them never want to leave by fostering genuine relationships and memorable experiences beyond the office.
This week, we're handing you the playbook on creating an inclusive and engaging atmosphere that your church staff will rave about. You'll discover a treasure trove of pragmatic strategies and innovative ideas—from staff skip days to picnicking in the park—that can transform your team's dynamics. Plus, we're going beyond the fun to tackle the crucial role of communication and accessibility in ensuring these golden opportunities reach everyone. Whether you're at the helm or part of the crew, grab your earbuds and join us for an episode packed with actionable insights to boost your church staff's satisfaction and camaraderie to celestial heights.
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Hi there and happy Friday to you if you are listening to this on the day that it is released. If it is not Friday, then happy whatever day it is. My name is Todd Rhodes. I'm the host for the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm also one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and here on the Healthy Church podcast.
Speaker 1:The past few weeks we've been doing this series. I hope it's been helpful to you on Healthy Church Staff, particularly what we learned from our Healthy Church Staff assessment last year and this week in particular. We are rounding out today our series on how to make your work environment one that not only attracts new staff but keeps the staff that you have, and today we're discussing the importance of providing opportunities for your staff to socialize and build relationships outside of work. Now here's where we're coming from on this of work. Now here's where we're coming from on this. Last year, during the Healthy Church Staff Assessment, we asked church staff members and we had over a thousand church staff respond how well they thought there were opportunities to connect with staff outside of work hours, and about 57% of staff said that they feel like there are sufficient opportunities. And about 57% of staff said that they feel like there are sufficient opportunities, but about 43% were either dissatisfied or neutral when we asked this question. So today we want to talk about how do we get that 30, 43% which is that's a pretty large number that either they're dissatisfied, they feel like, look, there's no opportunities for us to socialize outside of the office, to those that are neutral, that are on the fence, that don't really know if there are enough opportunities or not.
Speaker 1:Let's look at five key ways, maybe some ideas that you can try if you're in charge of a staff, that you can try with your staff, and if you're a staff member and you're listening to this, a lot of this can be just organic. A staff member and you're listening to this. A lot of this can be just organic Things that you create. Things that you might say it's not my responsibility. It'd be nice if the church would step up and help in this area, but this is an area that you can foster and work organically as well. As far as creating relationships and environments that the staff can mix outside of the office hours or outside the office, okay.
Speaker 1:So strategy number one is just try to diversify your social events. If you're in charge of your staff, see if you can offer a mix of kind of structured activities and informal gatherings that cater to different interests and preferences. Maybe you take a group of staff camping. Camping is not my deal, but tons of people love to go camping. Maybe you go to an amusement park for a day.
Speaker 1:We did this. We called it staff skip day. At one of the churches that I went to Got us in trouble with one of the board members one year, if I remember right, but that's a different podcast for a different day. But we did a staff skip day once a year and one year we went to an amusement park, just blew it off for the day. There were only like four of us and we went to the amusement park with our spouses and we had a great time. But it was again. It was an opportunity, a social event outside of office hours to connect, to grab some food, to do something fun and just recharge outside of that office environment.
Speaker 1:So team building exercises can really help. Maybe some casual outings, maybe a picnic. Maybe you don't take off a whole day, maybe you take a couple hours and go do a picnic somewhere at a park on a great day. Maybe you go work outside for a day. I don't know, but put on your thinking cap here and come up with some different ways that you can encourage staff to connect and engage each other outside of the four walls of their office or outside of the working areas. Okay, my idea number two, let's keep going here. Enhanced communication and accessibility. This is just one of your jobs as a leader. Regularly announce and promote different to these different ideas. Give some personalized invitations to some of these events that you're going to try and foster, like what we said in strategy one, so that they're accessible and accommodating and that they can provide easy off-ramps or on-ramps I'm not sure if it's an off-ramp or an on-ramp here For people to connect outside of the office or outside of office hours and make it easy. So if you're doing a gathering that's more adult-oriented, maybe you, I think you actually should provide child care options oriented. Maybe you, I think you actually should provide childcare options. Maybe you offer to pay for their childcare for the night, or maybe you my kids are older and we're empty nesters now, so I'm out of the loop of childcare options but provide some childcare options so that, so that you can make it easy, take down barriers for people to be able to connect outside the office.
Speaker 1:Okay, idea number three maybe offer some opportunities if you have a larger staff and you don't want to do like an all staff. Maybe some cross-departmental or some collaboration between different staff members, different teams, different departments, different ministry heads, maybe staff and high-level volunteers. Offer some things that will connect people, that maybe, if you have a larger team, they might work with the same people maybe four or five people on their team every day. And it's really important for some of those five people to get together outside of the office. But it's also important for them to be able to cross-pollinate and cross-collaborate with other and just get to know each other in other departments and just get to know each other in other departments. So breaking down these silos outside of the church and outside of the offices and outside of the work time can really lead to a more cohesive and supportive workplace culture and it's really gonna build into the health of your staff.
Speaker 1:Idea number four just celebrate those milestones and achievements Recognize. Celebrate those personal, professional milestones. Make every birthday celebration. Make a work anniversary a celebration. If it's their one-year anniversary that they've been on staff at your church, celebrate that. Buy a cake for crying out loud, cake in the lunchroom, those kind of things a lot and really help. Even though it's inside the four walls of the church, even though it's inside work hours, it's more of a social activity. It's hey, we're celebrating this person, we're celebrating that they've been here for this amount of time, or we're celebrating what they've done, or a big victory. These moments, acknowledging these things, creates a real sense of belonging and it really does build into the appreciation that your staff will have being a part of your staff.
Speaker 1:And then the last one is just seek ongoing feedback and support. Pull some of your staff aside and ask them hey, how are we doing here? How are we doing? Do you feel supported? Do you feel like you're a part of the team, not only the work team, but do you feel connected? Do you feel connected here at the church? Does your family have friends? Do you have friends? Gather that information and see if sometimes, when you ask those questions and you get real answers, it's going to help you to do a better job in this area.
Speaker 1:So fostering relationships among staff, man, that is an ongoing commitment. It requires intentionality, it requires creativity, it requires responsiveness and you just really have to engage your team in the process, listen to their ideas and really do some outside of the box thinking, and you know what it's fun. It's fun. It's fun not only to be a part of a team that enjoys being together in the office and outside of the office, but it's fun, if you're a leader, to see these relationships develop, to see the camaraderie and the enjoyment that your staff and families can have together outside of work orders or work hours, gather outside of work orders or work hours. It's just a great thing to witness and see as those relationships cultivate and what those relationships will contribute immensely to your church staff's health and, believe it or not, it will contribute to the longevity of your staff and the overall health of your staff.
Speaker 1:Okay, one last time. I lied. I'm going to do it again, probably next week, because next week is the last week that our 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment is available to you to take. It's absolutely free. You can head over to churchstaffassessmentcom. Take that assessment and it will help us out, but it will also help you by giving you some insight into how healthy you are. How are you doing on the health scale in seven key areas of your church staff health? So go ahead and take that today, if you can over at churchstaffassessmentcom Very good. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:We are going to be back next week On Monday. We're going to start our last series in this kind of larger series on church staff health. We're talking next week about future stability. It's going to be really important. If you have thought in the past of leaving your current staff role or you're currently thinking you're not going to want to miss. Next week we're going to unpack some of the future stability questions and what we learned from last year's church staff health assessment. So I hope you'll join us right back here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.
