How Does a Hospitable Culture Apply to Our Onboarding Practices?
We’re in an ongoing series called Hospitable Culture. The big question is this: What if hospitality isn’t something we do, it’s simply who we are? In other words, what if we could bump hospitality beyond the borders of an official team, and work it into every crevice of the church?
As we get to the end of our “Hospitable Culture” series – at least the regular monthly version – we’re shifting from what are primarily Sunday morning features of our hospitality to practices that benefit us – and our guests – seven days a week.
In my opinion, there’s nothing that will build or kill a culture faster than how we onboard our people. Whether unpaid volunteers or hired staff, how we lead them in their first days will define how they lead in future days. Or to co-opt a phrase from Mark Dever, what we win them with is what we win them to.
Onboarding volunteers
I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink on this topic in the past, so rather than rehashing it in this post, let me point you to some previous articles:
- Five Reasons Nobody Comes To Your Training
- Put the “Event” Back In Your Training Event
- Q&A: How Should I Think About Curriculum for Volunteer Onboarding?
- Why Training Matters (Even in a Smaller Church)
Onboarding staff
Nearly every church leader reading this is going to be responsible for hiring or training a new staff member at some point. While you may not have the need for a monthly (or even quarterly or annually) new employee orientation, your onboarding process should be standardized, documented, and improved upon every time you do it.
Here are five principles we follow when we onboard new staff:
1. Avoid the boreientation.
Did I just make up a new word? Maybe so. Several years ago I sat in on one of our new staff orientations, and to my horror I realized it was a slightly-glorified version of reading through the binder. Toby Flenderson couldn’t have made it any worse.
Thankfully, others saw that as well, and it served as a catalyst for major change. Now instead of policies and procedures, we hone in on gospel, culture, and vision-casting. We seat that process in the middle of some staff culture events, so they’re immersed from the jump. For example, orientation culminates in our monthly staff meeting, where they get a really good feel of the team they work with and the culture they work in.
2. Pay attention to the small things.
Our orientation team is incredibly thoughtful in the way they help new hires acclimate. From a small gift bag with some of the new employee’s favorite snacks and drinks, to a step-by-step email on what to expect and how to prepare for their first day, to a campus tour to show them everything from how to run the printer to how to work the kitchen coffee machine, the goal is to move them from outsider to insider in no time flat.
3. Allow them to ease in.
Imagine for a moment that you’re a worship pastor who has been searching for the right associate to add to your team. Once that person is hired, you want them to get cracking at 8 a.m. on day one, correct?
While that might be helpful for you, it’s not always merciful for them. That’s why we typically have a few days at the beginning where the new employee is under the care and feeding of the orientation team…not the person who hired them. This seems incredibly counterintuitive, but we’ve learned that there are long-term wins for everyone involved. There are things that the aforementioned worship pastor may not know – or forget to tell their new hire – that the orientation team will know, and make sure the new hire knows, before they get to number 4…
4. Help them to hit the ground running.
In the weeks between a new employee accepting an offer and officially starting on staff, there are a thousand tasks that start in the background to make sure we’re ready for them to start. Their email address is secured. Their laptop is ordered. Office supplies are waiting. Their workspace is cleared off, cleaned up, and made ready.
We don’t want a new team member to feel like we were caught off guard that they were hired. It’s a terrible feeling for them and a terrible act of service from us.
5. Immerse them in values over time.
Back to the boreientation. Those “go through the manual” days helped us to realize that we were shoving too much too soon. To paraphrase Larry Osborne, we didn’t know the difference between need to know and need to grow.
So we changed what we front-loaded for our new team members vs. what we dripped to them in their first few months. On our Guest Services team, for example, we lessened the load of what we gave our campus directors in week one, and spread a ton of that out over the first six months. Now we think in terms of “What do you need to survive your first Sunday?” vs. “What will be helpful six months in?” Our dripped curriculum and training reflects those new priorities, and keeps the new team member from being too overwhelmed.
Is our onboarding system perfect? It is not. But there’s a world of difference (and improvement) over the early days of boreientation. And it’s a far better reflection of our desire to build a hospitable culture. Plus, it models for them what we expect from them as they serve our congregation in the future.
Whether you’re bringing on a new staff member or a group of new volunteers, pay attention to what you win them with. It’s very likely that’s what you’ll win them to.
The five principles outlined above are adapted from our One-Day Workshop: Guest Services 2.0. Stay up to date on future training opportunities.
