Blog | Reducing the Impact of Church Staff Turnover

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Working in ministry can be one of the most demanding jobs. Aside from a few very large churches with hundreds of employees, most church jobs require you to be flexible and versatile in a variety of areas. Any church staff member will tell you how grateful they are for their fellow coworkers, as they recognize just how much each person carries on his or her plate when working in ministry.

That being said, you can imagine how detrimental church staff turnover can be if it’s not properly handled and prepared for. But it happens – people transfer out of positions all the time, and it’s the responsibility of a healthy ministry to have a plan for how to handle that situation. If you’re looking for a way to reduce the impact of church staff turnover, these tips are for you.

Reducing the Impact of Church Staff Turnover

The most important thing to do when attempting to reduce the impact of church staff turnover is to be proactive with your preparation of covering roles in your ministry. This shouldn’t be something that’s done after a staff member leaves/transitions out.

Here are some ideas on how you can reduce the impact of church staff turnover:

Create Volunteer Leaders

This is probably the most important thing you can do, and it is different from just “teaching volunteers”. Training volunteers to be actual leaders means they can operate independently and perhaps instruct others on how to help.

Think about it this way – training a volunteer to be a good guitarist or vocalist doesn’t teach them how to lead the worship ministry. However, slowly showing them the ropes on how you pick songs for a Sunday, make charts, or run a rehearsal is super valuable leadership experience.

Also keep in mind – this isn’t just a staff turnover risk mitigation strategy. Training volunteers to be leader frees up time and resources for staff to expand the ministry and invest in areas that have felt long neglected.

Be Aware of Your Employee’s Responsibilities

On first glance, that probably sounds micro-manage-y. That’s not what we mean. But you should have a really good grasp on what everyone is responsible for on a weekly basis. If your worship leader takes off, do you know everything they took care of? Were they the one running sound? Lights? Building charts from scratch? Setting up the sound system?

If you need to interview candidates for a new worship pastor, the last thing you want is to mis-represent what the role will consist of, hire the wrong candidate, and have them join completely unaware of the various responsibilities the last worship leader did.

Hire the Right People

“Thanks Sherlock…”

It seems pretty obvious right? Unfortunately, a lot of churches enter a mode of “desperation” immediately after an employee leaves. While they will tell you they’re looking for the perfect candidate, the truth is that the urgency of filling the role often trumps the pursuit of finding “the right person”. A church will settle for a candidate that is plainly sufficient for the role without the capacity to truly grow and invest in the ministry.

Hiring the wrong person can also cause for culture misfits and an inability to work with coworkers well. Chemistry is huge when filling crucial church leadership/staffing roles. Don’t rush the hiring process.

To Sum Things Up>

Church staff turnover is a huge bummer. Almost all of us have seen the impact of crucial staff members leaving their roles in a church, and it always sets everyone into a mild panic. To reduce the overall impact of church staff turnover, make sure you are building up volunteers – not just in small capacity, but as actual leaders. Invest in them and build them up to be able to lead the ministries they are involved in.

Also, make sure everyone knows what each staff person is responsible for. It’s easy for a worship leader to take on roles of charting, sound, lights, and a slew of other jobs without other leadership even knowing. This makes it difficult to hire the right person, as they may not be proficient in all these areas.

Lastly, don’t rush the hiring process. Finding the right person means not allowing the urgency to fill the role to trump the necessity of getting the right candidate. Everyone will be better off in the long-run.