6 Reasons Why Your Church Needs a Personnel Structure

I recently wrote on “How to Move Your Church Forward Through Effective Planning”.  In that article I stated I wasn’t suggesting that you run your church like a business. However, after having been a leader in the marketplace for nearly 38 years, and in the church for more than 22 years, I do think there are things we can learn from the business world to help our churches be more effective organizations. One of those things is a Human Resources (HR) “department” and a performance management system. In many churches, these functions could be the responsibility of an executive pastor. Here are 6 reasons I believe that a church needs an individual or team dedicated to HR functions:

• Employment decisions. It is important to have a consistent approach to selecting and onboarding new members onto your church team. Processes need to be established so that you don’t have to “recreate the wheel” every time you have an opening. This would start with developing job descriptions for each position, from the lead pastor to the church janitor. Following this would be an approach to interviewing, a training schedule for each position, new employee orientation, etc.
• Salary and Benefits. Another human resources responsibility is to determine the salary range and benefits for each position at the church. This will include everything from starting salary, annual salary increases, insurance, retirement, weeks of vacation, etc. Understanding that the starting salary could be flexible based on the skills and experience of the candidate, there should be salary ranges developed, so that a consistent approach is followed.
• Alignment to the vision and annual plan. It is easy for the different ministries of the church to all be doing “good” things, but having no alignment to the overall vision and the annual plan (see the effective planning article). My suggestion is that each member of the church staff, and all of the major ministries of the church, annually develop their plans, budgets and individual goals in alignment with the overall church vision and goals. The budgets and goals should be submitted to the leadership team, or a designee, such as an executive pastor.
• Performance evaluation. At a minimum, a one-hour formal performance evaluation (between the established goals and the actual performance) should take place on a semi-annual basis. Individual meetings to discuss performance, concerns, development needs, etc. should take place monthly to facilitate open communication and relationship building. These evaluations should be a component used by the church in determining annual salary compensation decisions.
• Legal issues. In today’s climate more than ever, a church will need a staff member who can advise them on legal issues related to staffing (hiring, terminating, etc.).
• Training and development. The ongoing growth of your team members is critical to your organization moving forward. Again, your church should have a consistent approach to the resources (books, conferences, classes, etc.) used for development, and one individual, such as the executive pastor, overseeing this.

If your church is very small, the above responsibilities are probably handled by the pastor or a group of elders. However, if your church is over 200 members, I would recommend assigning these responsibilities to one individual, such as an executive pastor or a personnel committee overseen by the executive pastor.

I’ve listed just a few of the most important responsibilities of a human resources department that are needed in your church. Other responsibilities such as finances could also be added to this list. What would you add to the list?