How To Know When To Create New Staff Positions
If a heavy workload is causing your church staff to feel overwhelmed and frustrated, it may be time to add new positions. Or, if your church lacks certain core or strategic competencies you may need to bring these additional skills to the staff team.
In more than 20 years as an Executive Pastor, I’ve wrestled with the questions of when to add staff and what are the right positions to recommend. Because people are passionate about their ministries and there are multiple ways to build an effective staff team, there is always an inherent tension when creating new staff positions.
To better manage these tensions, before you create new staff positions start by addressing the following questions with your team or committee.
12 Vetting Criteria for New Staff Positions
1. Need – We need a person who can meet this need………Why? How is this need currently being addressed?
2. Growth – How will this position help grow the mission, vision and ministry of our church?
3. Strategic – What strategic initiatives of the church will this position move forward? What specific global church objective or goal will this position help advance?
4. Gaps – If this person were not hired, what would not get done or accomplished? What would be the negative impact?
5. Benefits – What measurable results do we want to achieve from this position? What benefits will the church receive?
6. Volunteers – Can this need be met by a volunteer(s)? If not, why not?
7. Part Time – Can this need be met by a contract or part time employee? If not, why not? If so, what are the projected costs?
8. Outsourcing – Can this need be met by outsourcing? If not, why not? If so, what are the projected costs?
9. Other Staff – Can this need be met by adding it to the job description of a current position? If not, why not? If so, how would this additional responsibility impact their other responsibilities? Could a lesser priority position be eliminated to provide funding for this higher priority position?
10. Training – Can a current staff or volunteer be trained to fill this role? If not, why not? If so, how can this training be achieved?
11. Structure – If approved, where on the staff organization chart will the position fit? Supervisor-number of direct reports? Classification? Compensation? Funding source?
12. Priority – Where does this staff position fit in hiring priority, relative to existing staffing requests in the Multi-Year Staffing Model? What is the ideal timing of this hire?
Posted on February 23, 2016
