A long time ago (the 90’s) in a conference far, far away (London), a band of rebel HR leaders gathered in secret to dream of a new hope, a new vision of what thriving Christian organisations might look like. Let me tell you the story of what happened.
The “Christian Distinctives” group was born through a shared commitment to seeing churches, mission agencies and other Christian organisations become “spiritually passionate, professionally excellent and distinctively Christian”. A few good friends in the HR community and I spent the next few years speaking and leading seminars on HR in ways that combined industry best practices with 24-carat Biblical values. We lobbied and worked with government on employment legislation and published resources like the Distinctives HR Handbook for Churches & Organisations and developed an organisational assessment called Aspire.
Aspire was a phenomenally researched and tested tool for Christian Organisations to assess their organisational health. It was sophisticated and thorough, providing evidence-rich feedback and action plans delivered through highly experienced consultants. It was fantastic… and commercially, it was a disaster. We couldn’t persuade organisations to use it. We knew exactly what organisations needed to enable their people to thrive, but we seemed unable to get them to hear it.
But what did come out of this time was a rich knowledge of the key factors that determined whether an organisation flourished and had staff that were thriving. Of the questions that were asked many times in many organisations, 19 of them proved to be determinative: the tipping points of whether the Church or movement was doing well, reaching its potential with committed staff who loved being there.
Those 19 questions grouped themselves into five headline areas that we could show were needed in every organisation. The areas were:
- Excellent Infrastructure
- Effective Leadership
- Dependable Relationships
- Developmental Opportunities y
- Valued Work
Intuitively, they probably come as no surprise to you, but having the data to make the links between these things being in place and seeing both the organisation and people doing well was delightful.
Since that time, Gallup have refined their Q12 – the 12 employee needs that make up the items on Gallup’s engagement survey and Best Christian Workplaces have developed their Flourish model, on building an engaging and healthy workplace culture. All three of these resources come from very different strands: Gallup focuses on staff engagement, BCW looks at great places to work and our own work on Aspire looked at excellence and effectiveness within a Biblical framework.
And it turns out that everyone was right. All three of these tools point in exactly the same direction: focusing on the lives of our staff and seeing them thrive is the determinative factor in having an effective, sustainable and growing movement. “Wellbeing” is not something you give attention to at the cost of effectiveness and getting to the mission; your effectiveness is dependent on it, and we ignore it at our peril.
And it turns out that everyone was right. All three of these tools point in exactly the same direction: focusing on the lives of our staff and seeing them thrive is the determinative factor in having an effective, sustainable and growing movement.
I wrote an article a couple of years ago on the Return of Wellbeing – How LDHR’s role in wellbeing added strategic value to organisations during the pandemic. Since that time, an increase in staff turnover in many sectors, staff expectations of their “worklife” and generational issues have increasingly been playing centre-stage in the thinking of many leaders struggling to figure out how to lead their teams well and keep hold of and engage valued staff.
Over the next few weeks, we we look at some of the current trends and thinking around these issues. Many organisations and ministries are struggling with the Staff Life Cycle issue of recruitment. But the other side of this coin is retention. It has often been estimated in the commercial sector that the cost of recruiting is the equivalent of 6 to 9 months of salary. When you are talking about self-funding supported staff, the cost is exponentially higher – and that’s just in financial terms without even considering the length of time it takes for someone to develop ministry partners and join a staff team. If we could shift that trend, it would ease the pressure of recruiting, and maximise it’s benefit as each new staff member becomes an additional staff member rather than just a replacement.
So, if wellbeing and, therefore, retention depend on these five essential areas that we identified, what can we do to maximise our effectiveness? We’ll tell you more next week about how you, as an LDHR leader, can make a difference. See you then.
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2 comentarios en “Everyone was Right (Wellbeing and Retention 1)”
Thank you for this Paul. These are exactly the things my P&C team and I have been discussing for months. I look forward to reading each of the posts in this series.
Thanks Sarah! Good to hear the research still resonates. I’d love to hear anything that you’ve come up with as well!