When most people think of going to church they think of the sermon, the choir, and the Bible lesson. They may not, however, often think of the hiring process that is involved in replacing an integral staff position like the head or lead pastor. The process of replacing a pastor, however, can be as difficult in many parts of the country as replacing the top executives for some corporations.
Some churches, in fact, have to get by with an interim pastor for one to three years while the search committee works to find a suitable replacement. Complicating matters, there is an increasingly shrinking number of candidates pursuing this career. In addition to a church council having to come up with an adequate compensation packet, the governing body of the congregation often has to work with strategic planning personnel further up in the chain of command.
From part time workers to full time pastors and from executive officers to programmers, hiring mistakes can be expensive. For many companies, both large and small, the best alternative is to outsource the employee search and onboarding skills to an outside company. Armed with computerized personality surveys, carefully selected screening questions, and a wide array of possible contacts, a hiring and human relations consultant can help you find the most qualified people for the job. They can also help with the new employee transition and help improve the chances that the person that is hired will stay on the job for the foreseeable future.
Employee Turnover Is an Expensive Problem for Companies
When a company has a good hire, the ultimate goal is to find a way to keep that employee on the job for as long as possible. When the best employees are in need of conflict resolution, it is important to have a plan in place to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and that everything possible is done to take care of the problem and keep the best employees. Companies who have to constantly face the expense of high turnover not only struggle financially, they also often suffer from poor staff morale and an increasingly difficult time in finding future qualified employees.
Did you know, for instance, how expensive it can be to replace a worker that is even near the bottom of a pay school. Unless you have been a small business owner, in fact, you may not realize that the average cost of replacing an employee earning $8 per an hour can reach as much as $3,500. Moving up the pay scale, the cost of replacing middle level employees can be as much as 150% of the lost employee’s annual salary. For higher level employees, the turnover cost can skyrocket to more than 400% of the departing employee’s annual salary.
From the manpower needed to conduct the interviews to the costs of advertising the open position online or in the newspaper, dealing with turnover can be a challenge. And while many companies work on providing executive coaching skills to their top employers to limit the need for employee conflict resolution, when a hiring mistake happens the entire company can suffer.
From small businesses with fewer than 20 employees to very large corporations, anticipating the things that can avoid employee turnover is a major goal of any company.
How Many Jobs Have You Had in a Lifetime?
If you are the rare employee who has had a long tenure at your current job it may be difficult for you to understand the habits of other workers. If, however, you have been someone who has bounced from one sales job to another trying to find a good fit, you may not be surprised to find out that 2.5 million Americans quit their jobs every month. Given that the majority of all turnover occurs in the first year of employment, many companies find themselves spending more time on training a new employee than the amount of time that employee ever works before quitting. The latest research indicates that 52% of new employees quit within the first month. That is a frustrating statistic for a company that has just completed the exhausting task of finding new workers.
What are your company’s current employment needs?