The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
What Your Hiring Metrics Are Telling You (That You're Ignoring)
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If you're not tracking the right data during your church's hiring process, you're actually flying fly. Today we're going to talk about that as we explore the key hiring metrics that healthy churches are really paying attention to and what those numbers reveal about your staff culture and your candidate experience and your long-term success. This one's for pastors and leaders who want to hire smarter. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom. I am your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. What if the story of your hiring process could be told in just five numbers? Here's the crazy part. It already is Okay. Most churches are sitting on a goldmine of insight. They're just not tracking it. And today we're digging into those metrics that quietly tell the truth about your hiring wins and your losses and staff culture. So let's find out what those numbers are saying to you. Number one the time to fill. This number tells you how long it takes from posting a role until making a hire. If it takes a long time to fill and there are a lot of variables that fit into that and overall I would just say that searches are taking longer today than they did, say, three or five years ago. But if your searches just seem like they have no traction whatsoever, if they're taking a really long time to fill, it's possible that you've got some decision paralysis or some lack of clarity or maybe and I see this all the time some unhealthy expectations. Short time to fill doesn't always mean better. It could mean that you rushed the process or you settled. But ignoring this metric can lead to reactive hiring and staff burnout in the meantime. So you have to kind of look at that. First point is how's the momentum, how's the time to fill from start to finish? Is it longer, is it shorter? Is it about what you expected?
Speaker 1:Number two candidate drop-off rate. If people start the process, start your process, find them, you reach out to them, you start the interview process and then they disappear out of nowhere, sometimes midway through the search. That's a red flag. So here's what you need to ask At what stage do most candidates exit? You can look at your last few hires and see those that dropped off. Where did they drop off? Is it after the first call? Is it after they met the team? Is it after they read the job description? Because here's the truth High drop-off might point to poor communication, or it might point to bad fit, or it might point to a repelling experience. You don't know, until you look at that and find out exactly where and why people that you thought might be great candidates opted out. Okay, so that's number two.
Speaker 1:Number three the number of qualified candidates per role. You want the number to be healthy, not too low out of desperation, not too high, because that can overwhelm you, but a low number could signal bad sourcing. Maybe you're not looking in the right places, you're not fishing in the right ponds if you don't have enough candidates that are applying. Maybe unclear expectations, maybe it's just an unattractive role, or maybe hear me here maybe it's an unattractive salary package. Okay, if you're not getting great people to apply and the reason I say salary package is because many states now have paid transparency where you have to put, or you're at least supposed to put your salary into the actual job description. So if you're not getting great people to apply them, the problem might not be with them. It might be with how you're positioning the opportunity. Okay, so that's number three.
Speaker 1:The fourth number that I think you should look at is look at your acceptance rate, your offer acceptance rate If you're making offers, if you get all the way to the finish line. We just had a church that had this happen last week. They got all the way to the finish line. They were absolutely positive that the candidate was going to take their offer and he said no, I'm not going to do it. If you're making offers and getting turned down, that is a problem worth solving. Low offer acceptance could mean that maybe you're too slow to make decisions, maybe you're stringing it out too long and they took something else. Maybe you're giving them some reason to doubt. Maybe you're underwhelming on salary or vision. Maybe you're not building trust enough early in the process. And if you have a really high acceptance rates, you're probably doing a lot of things right and you can keep learning from that.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the final thought. Those are the four things that I think are really important, the four metrics. I think I mentioned that there are five. The fifth one is just it's not really a specific metric, it's just how's your team doing and are you on the same page? Are you in agreement? Is there unity in your search? And if you're not, if you don't find, if you find that you don't have unity on your search, if maybe you've got one person that's hold out, or or a couple of people that want one thing and three people who want something else. That's something that you have to take care of and that's a metric that overall 30,000 foot level you just need to get a hold of, okay. So my final thought, bottom line for today is healthy churches don't just pray for the right hire Now don't get me wrong, they are praying. Healthy churches don't just pray for the right hire Now don't get me wrong, they are praying. Healthy churches pray for the right hire, but they also track the right signs. They start small. They measure what matters. They use that data to build a better team. Maybe you've got a different hiring metric.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear it. Send me information on what you use, what's really worked well for you, or maybe something that has not worked for you. I would love to hear it and maybe even do a podcast about it. You can reach out to me at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. And this week we are starting our third annual Healthy Church staff assessment, where we ask about 50 questions of staff people and what we're doing is monitoring health and if you'd like to see how you're doing at your church, how healthy you are compared to 1,200 other people that we surveyed last year. I would love for you to take the assessment. It's absolutely free and you can take it right now at chemistrystaffingcom slash 2025. Chemistrystaffingcom slash 2025, chemistrystaffingcom slash 2025. All right, if there's ever any way that I can help your church with hiring or firing or healthy staff initiatives, reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Thanks so much. Hope you have a great day.
