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"We're Understaffed" Is Not a Strategy · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've had we're gonna hire someone on the board agenda for 11 months, and meanwhile, the same three people are covering four jobs.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a season, that is the current plan.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Every problem is another hire that you just haven't made yet.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody will kill a ministry, nobody will combine a role, nobody will say no to a new idea, and your staff are just absorbing the gap.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in your head, you call it a stretch season, but your staff now just figure it's their job going forward.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: If this sounds familiar, you're in the right place.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about it today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the co-founders over chemistrystaffing.com.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you're here for a part of listening to the podcast here today.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's still in the monthly board minutes, probably for the last six or seven or eleven months.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we need to hire somebody.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every board meeting, no posting, no job posting, no date, no open position.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't even decided what role you're gonna hire yet.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: No decision to stop anything that you're doing will just pile it onto other people, and just it's just gonna be for a little bit.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know that you're understaffed, but it's a choice that you keep making.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can hire, you can cut the work, but you keep the third option, you leave that chair empty and let people who are still there on your staff cover it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's a strategy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're just not calling it a strategy, you're just saying it's just short term, but everybody thinks it's probably the new reality.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see who's paying for it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Three people, four jobs.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gonna pay for it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same three people.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's kids and worship and admin.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: They get all of the leftovers, they get role that you should hire.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: They there's really four jobs and three bodies.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you keep saying, hey, can you do this just until we hire?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or hey, until we're gonna we're gonna bring somebody on.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that season has been going on for quite a while.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem like there's any end date, at least your staff.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those three people don't feel like there's any in date.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: They can see the empty chair, and they know that Sunday still happens.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they take the extra, they're good troopers, you put back on next month's agenda that you need to hire somebody.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, this isn't the roll creep from other duties as a sign.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that last week on the podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is not that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is actually something a lot worse.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is an unfilled C that you are using as a person.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: The vacancy has a workload, right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've not hired somebody for that role, that work still has to get done.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're just divvying it out to other people on your team.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You assigned it to whoever would not let it drop.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you you will not kill the thing that would make the math honest, right?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna, because you haven't hired anybody, you're not going to say we're not gonna do this for a season until we hire somebody.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're just divvying out the work.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is every problem is, hey, we need another hire.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: A new idea in the elder meeting, we should get somebody for that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You won't sunset a ministry, you won't stop anything, you won't combine two roles into one honest job.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You won't say no to the new thing, you'll just figure out a way to do it with the limited staff that you have.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes saying no just feels like it's a lack of faith, because a new idea is easier than a funeral for an older one.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: For an old idea, right?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, rather it's much easier to start something new than to stop something that you've been doing for 20 years that isn't effective anymore.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the plan has always been for the last 11 months is more people that you just don't have.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Understaffed kind of becomes your identity over time.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, hey, we've been that understaffed church for years.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know you're not trying to grind three people into four jobs, so you maybe have never even thought about it like that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: You remember when the last person left, right?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You've been meaning to post the job, it's just been busy, the buzzer conversation budget conversation's messy, that's reasonable.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's but it this kind of thinking is also how the vacancy becomes the culture.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where understaffed starts as a grief because you are understaffed, and then it becomes an excuse that lets you launch one more thing and never take off one thing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Staff are not a bridge to the hire, they are the hire that you refuse to name.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that empty chair that you see that everybody else sees does not absorb anything.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: People do.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: People absorb those new tasks.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They cover for the midweek when they were not hired to cover for the midweek.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You say you can't hire yet, you still announce the new initiative.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The shock has to go somewhere, and it goes to the same three people, the same three calendars.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not tired because they lack passion, they're tired because you made under staffing the ministry model.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a season that just has to end.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: A plan has an owner, and until we hire, when you say until we hire, that has neither neither an owner or an end.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I would like for you to do, or at least consider one uncovered role this week and end the until, okay?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: This week, pick one uncovered role, and then either either post it or give me a call at chemistry staffing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: We'll help you find somebody.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Give it a real date, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or officially just stop doing that work, right?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been going for two years without a youth pastor and you keep saying that you've got a youth pastor, you've got to pull some plugs on some things.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or hire a youth pastor, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then say it to the team, say it to the board.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The expectation is off of the three people covering the four jobs.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: No more of this until we hire stuff, okay?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Until is how you keep the labor and skip the decision.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you cannot post it and you will not stop it, you already wrote the strategy.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you cannot post a job or at least open a job and try to find somebody, and you won't stop what that job role is supposed to do, you've already written the strategy and it's chronic understaffing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Staff as the shock absorber, vacancy as identity.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the bottom line for today.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to hire on the agenda for 11 months is not a season, it's a plan.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Post the role, open the roll with a date, or officially stop the work that role currently is spread out doing across three or four other people.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know this one.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't have the right person, but and I get that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a budget fight.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I also know that you actually want a team that is staffed for the work that you keep announcing.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you want a team that can cover all the ministries that you're promoting and all the ministries that are important.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my admonition for you today.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got one of those open positions that you just haven't started looking for, do it today or else stop the work.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: You may have some pushback, you may have some comments, you may have some questions for me.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you'll join me right here again tomorrow on the Healthy Church Death Podcast.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.