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The Year-Three Conversation That Would Have Saved Them · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: 59% of your three five-year staff are a flight test.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it on your calendar.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: You just never put the meeting on yours.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're not new anymore.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're not in crisis just yet.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's your worship pastor at month 32, your associate pastor just starting year three, your kids director who stopped bringing ideas to the table.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to act shocked when the resume goes live.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you're dealing with in your church and on your team.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about this today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Chemistry has watched this wall that we call it for more than 3,400 staff over the last three years.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: We call it the three to five year wall.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Most pastors still treat it like it's a surprise.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the wall that you can actually see from here.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what am I talking about when I talk about this three to five year wall?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the propensity for the flight risk, which is what we call when someone is looking to leave your staff for another church staff.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We find that flight risk goes up in years three, four, and five.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can get your staff through that three to five year wall, chances are greatly increased that you'll have a really long-term staff member.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the three to five year period is the highest according to our healthy church staff assessment for people wanting to jump ship or to look for something new.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the wall that you can see from here.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: New staff under one year, for example.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you hired somebody in the past year, their health score is 193 out of 250.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Flight risk about 32%, whether or not they're going to stay or leave.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the three to five-year staff, overall score goes down from 193 to 176, and the flight risk goes from 32% to 59%.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's 17 points of health.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like poof, it's just gone.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: 27 points of flight risk added.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not a personality problem.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a tenure problem with a date on it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: In business, a high performer at month 30 gets a career conversation before a recruiter does.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in the church, they get another annual review and maybe a Christmas bonus.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So 51, a couple more stats for you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: 51.1% of paid staff thought seriously about leaving in the past year.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: A little over half.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: 61.9% are not fully committed or firmly committed to staying.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your three-year people are inside those numbers.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the part that should get your attention.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Month 30 is not a surprise.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't wake up restless last Tuesday.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they outgrew the job title, maybe they outgrew the pay.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the growth path went quiet and there really wasn't a real path for them that they saw in the first one or two years.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get there, nobody really says it out loud.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they just started saying it to a friend in another city.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: From your perspective, you just kind of called it a sudden departure.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: They call it the conversation that you never schedule.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So feeling valued is what we found in our survey to be the largest gap between staff who thrive and staff who struggle.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again because that's really important.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Biggest gap between staff, particularly in that three to five year window, between staff that thrived and staff that struggled, the biggest gap was their feeling of being valued.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: At year three, valued doesn't mean a public thank you.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It means is there a future here that isn't just status quo and keep doing this forever.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know most of your hearts, I've talked to many of you, you weren't ignoring.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You just kind of think, hey, they're here, they're a part of the team, they bought a house for crying out loud in the city.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You thought no news was good news.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They seem fine, and that's human.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But fine at month thirty is often a person who has already started looking and hasn't just yet told you.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now this is this isn't an annual review.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you put an annual review on your calendar.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: A review looks backward.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: A conversation though looks forward.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: How did you not how did you do this year?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It looks more like this.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: What does the next three years need to look like for you to stay?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Scope, title, compensation, and growth plan before the resume goes live.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you wait until they ask for a raise, guess what?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nine times out of ten, you are already too late.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you wait until they give notice, you're doing an exit interview and then calling it some kind of leadership.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it actually look like to have a conversation with these three to five year staff members?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna actually go 30 months here, okay?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say the 30-month ask.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think you should do or consider doing anyway.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down with your pastor, your associate pastor, your worship pastor, your kids director, who whoever's in that 24 to 36 month, three to five year window, and ask them four questions.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the whole meeting.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Four questions.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, has the job changed more than the title has?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's question number one.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Has the job changed more than the title has?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then sit and listen.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, is the compensation still honest for the seat that you're actually in now?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: We find oftentimes is that between 24 and 36 months, your staff members doing something totally different than what you hired them to do on day one.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So is the compensation still honest for the seat that they're actually in today?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's question number two.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Question number three.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do they want to get better at in the next 24 months?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do they want to get better at in the next 24 months?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then follow it up with this.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: How can we help you?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who can help you here?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can we support you?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: How can we get you from where you are to where you want to be in the next 24 months?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually showing interest in the person and actually building into them and investing into them and asking them where they feel like God is moving them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: The goal, obviously, is to have them do that, whatever they feel like God's moving them to, with your church.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do they want to get better at in the next 24 months?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's question number three, and how and who can we help with that?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last question number four.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a tough one, okay?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: If a church like ours called next month, what would you say to make them stay?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: If a church called, what would you say?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to make them stay?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Write down the answers and then do something with them.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: A conversation with no follow-up is just a nicer way to lose them.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you do need to follow up.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And here this needs to come from the top.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: This has to be a first chair move.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This one doesn't delegate.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't hand this off to anybody else on your team in most cases, or to an office manager.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can hand off a career conversation.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a first chair move.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: The senior pastor, the lead, the person who can actually change the scope and the title and the pay.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: In some churches, that might be the executive pastor.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: If the only person who can say yes isn't in the room, then this isn't a future conversation.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a courtesy call.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your three to five year people don't need another pep talk.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: At three to five years, they've heard the pep talk.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: What they need is they need to know that the church has a plan that includes them, or they'll make a plan that doesn't include you.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the bottom line for today.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: The three-year wall isn't a surprise.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't treat it like it's a surprise.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a meeting that you never put on your calendar that needs to be put on.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your challenge for this week.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to do something really uncomfortable.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to pull a tenure list.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got a staff, pull a tenure list.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone sitting at that 24 to 36 month range tenure gets a real career conversation this month.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not a review, a real true future conversation.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Scope, title, comp, growth plan.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Put it on your calendar before they put a resume on theirs.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I know this one stings, but I also know that you care about the people who you've already given who've already given you three to five years.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you're listening.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this helped.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you need to, pass this on to another team member, another colleague that you think this would be helpful to subscribe wherever you listen to all of your podcasts.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we're here every weekday, Monday through Friday.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to reach out to me, if there's any way that I could help you or your church, reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be right back here tomorrow on the Helping Church Bath Podcast.