3 Questions Every Church Must Answer To Improve The Onboarding Experience For New Hires
As we noted in our previous posts on the onboarding process, if church leaders want to compete for talent and keep it, they need to create an onboarding process that is exceptional. But, according to Gallup surveys, the fact that only 12% of employees strongly agree their company or organization does a good job in onboarding new employees reveals there’s a major let down after the recruitment phase is over.
Church leaders need to understand that new employees don’t stop evaluating the church when they sign the acceptance letter; they formulate conclusions about their decision during their first several weeks and months of employment and an effective onboarding experience will help positively shape those impressions. Here are a few questions to make sure your onboarding process includes.
3 Questions Your Onboarding Process Must Answer
Undoubtedly, many facets of onboarding will vary from employee to employee, but regardless of a new hire’s role, answering the following three questions should be central:
1. Do new employees know what makes you unique?
Few onboarding programs share with new hires why a church’s vision, strategy, programs and services are distinct, unique, and valuable. This lack of understanding has major implications in a new employee embracing and embodying the church’s uniqueness.
2. Do new employees know exactly how their job helps fulfill your church’s mission, vision, and strategy?
Supervisors/managers need to connect the new employee to the church’s mission, vision, values and strategies and explain how the employee’s role personally impacts each aspect and is important to the church’s success. Feeling like your job matters is an underrated yet key determinant of exceptional performance.
3. Do new employees experience your mission and values in action during onboarding?
Church leaders can ensure that every new employee, regardless of level, understands the church’s mission and values by creating opportunities for them to experience the mission and values in action. This might include experiencing a local mission project, attending a worship planning meeting, attending a Deacon or Elder meeting, sitting in on a leadership training event, and participating in the new member process.
Intentionally addressing these three questions will provide a better onboarding experience. An excellent onboarding process is not just a useful strategy to engage new hires but also for recruiting future staff, because 71% of job seekers say they use referrals from colleagues to find a job.
Posted on February 8, 2022
