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
When to Hire: How to Know It's the Right Time
Is your church struggling to keep up with growing demands? Discover how to recognize the right moment to expand your team in our final episode of the series with Todd Rhoades, co-founder of Chemistry Staffing. We explore critical indicators that it might be time to hire new staff, such as your team being overwhelmed, missed ministry opportunities, and an over-reliance on volunteers. Learn how to prevent burnout and ensure your church is poised to capitalize on growth opportunities with strategic staff additions. We'll also discuss budget-friendly options like part-time roles or sharing staff with other churches, ensuring your church can continue thriving without breaking the bank.
As the holiday season approaches, Todd extends warm wishes to church staff and leadership, encouraging reflection and strategic planning for the coming year. Stay engaged with our podcast and share your ideas for future topics. We’re committed to providing valuable resources to support your ministry success. Here's to a joyful Christmas and a prosperous New Year with your loved ones, as we celebrate and plan for growth in the season ahead. Subscribe now to make sure you never miss an episode and continue your journey of effective church staffing and leadership.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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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.
Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at Chemistry Staffing. I'm glad you're here joining me as we wrap up this two-week series on hiring for your church. Christmas is next week. I know everybody man is so busy. This is the Super Bowl for churches and I'm so glad that you're taking some time to listen today. We're going to be here next week. I hope you'll be able to listen and subscribe. That way you won't miss anything that happens on the podcast next week. We've got some great episodes ready for you next week.
Speaker 1:Today I want to talk about as we end out this week in this series we talk about one of the most critical and sometimes confusing questions in the hiring process, and that question is this when is the right time to hire? Timing is everything when it comes to bringing on new staff. Move too soon and you might stretch your resources too thin, wait too long and you risk burnout or stagnation or missed opportunities with your current staff. So today I'm hoping that we can break this down for you a little bit, help you figure out whether or not your church is ready to hire and, if so, how to move forward with confidence. And this comes at a great time and it's the end of the year A lot of churches. Maybe you've already got your budget all around, maybe you've just approved your budget and you have budgeted for a new staff member for 2025. So maybe this is hitting you at just the right time. But let's talk about this when is the right time to hire? Let me start here. Okay, there's no. I'm going to give you the consultant answer. Right, there's no one? I'm going to give you the consultant answer right, there's no one size fits all answer to when a church should hire. Every church is unique and every church has different needs and budgets and dynamics, but there are some key signs that it might be time to add someone to your team. Okay, so let's take a look at those. Let's see. I've got five of them here for you today. All right, so when should you hire? How do you know it's time to hire?
Speaker 1:The first kind of guidepost that you could look at is your current team is overwhelmed. This is pretty straightforward. Is your staff working long hours, constantly putting out fires or feeling stretched too thin? If so, man, that's a red flag. Overwork leads to burnout, leads to turnover, long hours constantly putting out fires or feeling stretched too thin? If so, man, that's a red flag. Overwork leads to burnout, leads to turnover. So if you think your team is overwhelmed, now lose another staff member and it's going to be even a much bigger problem than hiring. So take a look at your current staff and your volunteers and are they operating at a sustainable pace? Are they able to be healthy or are they on the road to burnout? If they're not healthy, if they're overworked and under underpaid, maybe underappreciated, it might be time to bring in at least one reinforcement. Okay. So, first thing, look and ask yourself is my current team overwhelmed?
Speaker 1:Number two are there ministry opportunities that are being missed? That's another sign that it's time to hire, and that's when ministry opportunities are slipping through the cracks. Maybe your church is growing, but you don't have enough leaders to disciple new believers. That's a ministry crack that you need to fill. Perhaps you've identified a new outreach opportunity, but you don't have the capacity to act on it. Here's the thing Growth and impact often require some investment, and it's more than just money. If you're holding back because you're understaffed Okay, if you're holding back because you're understaffed, you could really be missing out on what God has and wants to do through your church. That's another time to hire is when you have ministry opportunities that are just falling through the cracks and you're missing them.
Speaker 1:Okay, number three you're constantly relying on volunteers for core functions. Now, volunteers are amazing right, and I think the best churches actually utilize volunteers really substantially. But volunteers, while they're amazing, they're not a substitute for staff when it comes to critical ongoing responsibilities. And if your volunteers are filling gaps that really require full-time leadership, it's a sign that you're probably understaffed. I knew of a church once that relied on volunteers to lead their youth ministry for years and eventually the volunteers just burned out, ministry began to struggle and when they finally hired a full-time youth pastor, it absolutely revitalized the program and gave consistency that it needed to thrive. But that new youth pastor, that new full-time youth pastor, had to almost start from scratch because all the volunteers had left. They were just so tired and so burned out. So if you're constantly relying on volunteers for core functions that really need full-time leadership, it's probably time to consider a new hire.
Speaker 1:Number four you've outgrown your current team structure. Sometimes the need to hire isn't about burnout or gaps, it's just about growth. Sometimes the need to hire isn't about burnout or gaps. It's just about growth. If your church is in a growing spurt and your staffing structure probably needs to grow with it, a team that worked well for 150 people probably is not sustainable at 300 people. So if your church has reached a new level of growth or a different level of complexity, it's worth asking whether or not your church team is equipped the current church team is equipped to meet the challenges, or if you need to bring somebody else on your team. And then the last one, number five, is if your budget allows it. Of course, none of this matters if you can't afford it. But here's the good news Hiring isn't an all-or-nothing decision. If your budget's tight, consider creative options like maybe hiring part-time decision. If your budget's tight, consider creative options like maybe hiring part-time, maybe sharing a staff member with another church, maybe phasing in a new position over time. But the key is to balance that financial stewardship with the needs of your ministry.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've got five questions for you. Today. You might want to take out a piece of paper. This is the rubber meets the road, the next step for an honest look at your church's current staffing position and condition. And I want you to ask yourself five questions, okay. Number one is my team overwhelmed or are they on the verge of burnout? And if you don't know, ask a team member. They'll gladly tell you how they're doing. That's question number one. Question number two are we missing any ministry opportunities because of a lack of capacity? Number three are our volunteers filling roles that require full-time leadership? Number four these just come from the points I just talked about. Have we outgrown our current staffing structure? And number five does our budget support a new staff hire or can we find a creative solution that might make it work?
Speaker 1:And if you're answering yes to any of these, it might be time to start that hiring process or at least investigating it. And if you're still unsure, gather your leadership team together and pray through it. Sometimes clarity can come from more of a collective discernment. And if you're on the fence even after today's podcast and you're like Todd, I just don't know. I don't know. Should we hire, should we not hire? I don't know If you're on the fence right now about whether or not it's a great time to hire or a bad time to hire.
Speaker 1:Reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Let's talk. I'd love to have a conversation with you, find out a little bit more about your situation, see if there's any way that I can help you in my role here at Chemistry Staffing. I'm not a high salesperson, so you don't have to worry about any kind of a sales scheme from me. I just really want to hear what you're going through and see if there's any way that I can help. And hey, if you've enjoyed this series, I'd love it if you would hit subscribe if you haven't done it already. Or maybe forward or tell somebody a colleague and a fellow staff member or somebody at a different church. Maybe forward or tell somebody a colleague and a fellow staff member or somebody at a different church about this podcast as well.
Speaker 1:We always want to put this in the hands of as many church staff people as we can. The content is very unique that it's tailored specifically for church staff leadership and church staff people. You can always reach out to me anytime with any kind of suggestions of what you'd like to hear on the podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today, and next week is Christmas. We're going to be here. If you need to take a break from even the podcast, oh, don't do that, don't do that. But if you have to take a break from the podcast. We'll see you the first week in January and you can always hit subscribe and listen to all of them. But in the meantime, I hope you have just an absolutely great season of ministry during the Christmas season at your church and I hope that you have a great Christmas and a very happy New Year with you and your family. All right, thanks so much. Merry Christmas.
