Acquiring new talent continues to be top priority for Christian charities

Each month, CCCC invites members to send us their prayer requests which we then pray over during our weekly staff meetings. We love being able to support our ministry partners in this way!  One of the most common prayer requests we receive is that God will bring along the right people to meet the numerous staffing needs faced by Christian charities across Canada.   I have no doubt that for many, acquiring new talent will continue to be a top strategic priority in 2017.

CCCC’s upcoming webinar on ‘hiring well’

Charities planning to hire new staff in 2017 won’t want to miss CCCC’s upcoming FREE live webinar: “Hiring Well”.  In this webinar we will be discussing best practices for Christian ministries to attract and hire top talent, including:

• How can we clearly define the role we are seeking to fill?
• What are the best practices for promoting the opportunity to join our team?
• How can we select the right candidates?
• What needs to be done to properly make the job offer?

We will be offering the webinar at two different times:

• Wednesday, February 22 at 12 pm (EST)
• Wednesday, February 22 at 2 pm (EST)

Please register by clicking on the time that suits you best.

This webinar is open to anyone, but only CCCC Members will receive complimentary access to the webinar recording.

Options for Christian ministry opportunities

CCCC is often asked where Christian ministries can most effectively advertise their job postings.  Assuming that the charity has taken the time to define their requirements and update the job description, the following list provides some suggestions:

• Denominational offices
• Christian colleges and universities
• Employee referrals and word of mouth
• Professional associations (e.g. when recruiting for credentialed professionals such as Accountants, Payroll Specialists or those in Fundraising functions)
• Staffing agencies and professional recruitment services (e.g. when recruiting for more senior or hard to fill positions)

Online job board on road map for CCCC

I am pleased to share that CCCC is working towards adding an online job board to the services that we provide.  We have been hearing for some time that charities would value a way to connect with Christian job seekers, and we are excited to finally be moving ahead with this initiative.  If this is something that is of interest to you, please consider taking a few minutes to complete an online survey which will help to ensure that this service offering meets the needs of Christian charities in Canada.  This survey will remain open until February 28, 2017.

Christian ministry online job boards

Here are several online job boards that Christian charities may find helpful.  Of course this is not meant to be an exhaustive list, and if you know of other service providers that you have used successfully in the past, I would love to hear from you!

Ambrose University 

• Job seekers will certainly appreciate the relevant blog posts on effective job search tools and techniques.
•  Employers have the option of including additional details with their job postings, such as: video, website and social media information.
• Employers can also set the posting up so that applicants apply to them directly, or through the job board.
• Job postings must be approved by the school before they get posted to the job board, and are free to post.

Christian Careers Canada

• Christian Careers Canada is a service of Tyndale University College & Seminary and is open to the Canadian Christian community.
• By default jobs expire after 90 days, however users can set a maximum expiry date of up to six months.
• Job postings must be approved in advance by Christian Careers Canada, and the website indicates that postings are often approved on the same day.
• There is no cost to employers to post their positions to this job board.

ChristianEmployment.com

• This website is a paid service where Canadian charities can post their positions for a period of 30 days.
• The site has many good resources for job seekers that are written from a faith based perspective.
• As part of a paid service, biblical career counselling and support are available by phone or skype.
• Charities seeking Christian outplacement and career transition services may wish to investigate this resource further.

Christian Job Search

• ChristianJobSearch.net is a free service through Heritage College & Seminary and users are encouraged to consider making a donation to help with the costs of maintaining the online job board website.
• Employers can choose to make their postings visible for 30 or 60 days.
• Employers have the option to create a profile that is viewable to job seekers.
• Job seekers will like that they can set an email alert based on a keyword.

Don’t neglect your charity’s talent pipeline!

While online job boards can certainly be very useful, it is important to remember that they are not a complete solution when it comes to meeting your charity’s staffing needs.  To reach more passive, highly qualified candidates, a different approach is often required.

The idea of a talent pipeline is based on building and maintaining relationships with others who may not yet be ready to join your team, but could make a great staff member in the future.  It’s really a continual process that moves beyond viewing recruitment as a point in time activity, to continually connecting with highly qualified candidates who may not be actively looking for other employment.

While building a talent pipeline does require leaders to be intentional in doing so, the good news is that it isn’t difficult.  Here are a few ideas of how to get to work on building your charity’s talent pipeline:

• Make it part of the conversation: when speaking with others in your network, make it a standing question to ask if they know of any talented ministry professionals that you should meet.
• Post interview follow up: remember to keep in touch with unsuccessful candidates who may be a good fit for your organization or another Christian ministry in future.  Asking to connect via LinkedIn is an easy way to do this.
• Stay in touch: schedule a reminder in your calendar to connect with someone in your talent pipeline each month.  It can be as easy as sharing an article they may find helpful or giving them a quick call.  Handwritten cards are still a very effective way of staying connected.

A word about millennials

Consider reaching out to Christian colleges and universities to find out how to make your job postings known to their co-op students and alumni.  Sometimes schools will host job fairs which can be a great way of meeting a large number of candidates in a short period of time.  If you are planning on attending The Pursuit’17 in Edmonton this spring, make a point of meeting some of the individuals who are attending as part of CCCC’s Young Leader’s Program.  Millennials now make up the largest demographic in the Canadian workplace, so there is a good chance you will be hiring one in the future!

Closing thoughts

Charities that take a proactive approach in building their talent pipelines will be better positioned to fill key and critical positions than those who do not.  While tools like online job boards can certainly be very helpful in creating awareness about the job opportunity, a broader approach is often needed, especially when it comes to hard to fill positions.

The post Help wanted: Christian charities and the ongoing search for talent appeared first on CCCC Blogs.

Connect four

Mandatory retirement legislation in Canada has been gone for a while now.  And that’s a good thing.  Older workers have much to offer in terms of the knowledge they have acquired over their careers, and are a valuable talent pool for Christian charities to draw from.  And while there are many reasons why older Canadians choose to continue working, their delayed retirement has resulted in organizations having up to four generations in the workplace.  These generations and their approximate years of birth are: Silent Generation (early 1920’s to early 1940’s), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (early 1960’s to early 1980’s) and the Millennials (early 1980’s to early 2000’s). This multi generational workforce represents a tremendous opportunity for charities, but is not without its challenges.

Millennials

The newest and perhaps most disruptive generation in terms of challenging long held workplace norms are known as Millennials, or Generation Y. Millennials already occupy senior leadership positions in some organizations (think Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook) and exert considerable influence on Canadian society as a whole.  The outcome of our country’s most recent federal election was most certainly influenced by Millennials who turned out in record numbers to vote.  Millennials have influenced the types of worship songs we sing in our Churches, and are also making their presence felt in Christian workplaces with their preference for things like flexible work arrangements and continuous feedback.

According to Statistics Canada, Millennials are now the largest demographic in Canada’s workforce.  This demographic is often portrayed by various thought leaders and business gurus as having unrealistic expectations that can drive their older colleagues…well…nuts!  For example, Millennials often have very different expectations when it comes to things like career progression, as well as when and where work gets done.  Entitlement is a word that seems to have become synonymous with Millennials.

Before we go any further it must be said that these are simply generalizations, and it is human nature to try to categorize things to make sense of our world.  Not all Millennials want to work from home or be promoted to senior leadership positions in their first year of employment.  I personally think too much emphasis has been placed on how different each generation is from the other, and that we are still more alike than we realize.  Our Christian faith is a bond that we share and transcends generational differences in that we are all seeking to do our work as unto the Lord.

While we all need to be intentional about fostering positive working relationships, I am going to suggest that there are three highly impactful things that Boomer and Gen X leaders can do to lead the way and work in harmony with their Millennial colleagues.  It could be that you are doing some of these already!

1.  Manage career progression expectations

Christian charities tend to be fairly flat in terms of hierarchy, which means that professional development will look like more of a latticework than climbing the career ladder of years gone by. Combined with the fact that many ministry workers have chosen to delay their retirement, fewer career progression opportunities are currently available to Millennials.  Having said that, there is still much that Baby Boomer and Gen X leaders can do to positively manage Millennial expectations around career progression.

Being fairly close in age to the Millennial cohort myself, I can say that it is a powerful thing when a leader invests their time to understand where their team members want to develop and grow and to help them discern their ministry calling. Learning new skills, challenging/interesting assignments and getting to work with others who excel at what they do can all be powerful motivators for Millennials to stay with a charity.  And while that next promotion might not yet be available, leaders may want to consider the following as opportunities to engage and retain their Millennial colleagues:

• Development plans – together with the employee, create a development plan that identifies their short/medium/longer term ministry goals, and what supports might be needed to help get them there. Development planning lets the employee know that they have a path forward with your ministry, and that the charity is committed to their continued learning and growth.
• Stretch assignments – this could include having a staff member make a presentation to the Board, or having them backfill for a more senior employee who is on vacation, sabbatical or some other kind of leave.
• Job rotation – more senior roles require a broader perspective of how the charity’s various functional areas (e.g. operations, finance, marketing etc.) work together.  Providing an employee with exposure to these areas is an invaluable professional development experience.

2.  Commit to making regular one to one conversations a priority

Thanks to the internet, Millennials have grown up in a time of unprecedented connectivity to the world around them. Smart phones, social media, online gaming and crowdsourcing all make it possible to receive real time feedback on ideas and decision making.  Understanding the Millennial context can certainly go a long way in helping leaders support these employees with their need for ongoing feedback.

For Millennials, this desire to receive continuous feedback carries over into the workplace, and because performance review discussions typically only occur at fixed intervals throughout the year, they need to be supplemented with ongoing one to one conversations.  For further details on conducting effective one to ones, please see my previous blog post called Are one-to-one’s part of your leadership tool kit?

One to one conversations are an excellent vehicle to discuss what is going well and not so well and helping leaders to understand if additional resources are needed or if the employee is at an impasse. Leaders can provide coaching and feedback in the moment which allows the employee to correct course if things are off track.  This kind of real time feedback is much more valuable than trying to reflect back months later during performance review time.

Staff member recognition is an important kind of feedback and one to one conversations can be used to reinforce what the employee is doing particularly well.  Many of the suggestions in my blog post called 7 tips for effective staff member recognition will enable leaders to recognize their Millennial staff members in ways that are particularly meaningful to them.

 3.  Tackle the question of where and when work gets done

With the always on, always connected nature of today’s technology, it is little wonder that the lines between work and personal life get blurred.  More than ever before, technology is allowing us to work from anywhere, any time and Millennials in particular tend to place a high value on flexible work arrangements.

I would encourage charities to create guidelines around how these kinds of requests will be evaluated, and communicate these guidelines to staff to ensure clarity and understanding.  Here are some filters you may want to consider when evaluating requests for flexible work arrangements:

• What role or function does the employee perform within the organization?
• How would this impact the charity’s ability to maintain service standards?
• Has the employee successfully completed their probationary period?
• Is the employee’s performance meeting expectations?

In general, requests to work remotely should be considered on a case by case basis, as some roles may be more conducive to working remotely than others.  For example being flexible and responsive are key qualities that enable pastors to meet the needs of their congregants and broader community in a caring and timely way.  Visiting someone in hospital or providing counselling often don’t fall neatly into regular business hours, making flexible work arrangements a necessity.  In other roles, creating a consistent donor or client experience may impact whether or not an employee can effectively conduct their work remotely.

Whether flexible work arrangements are a good idea or a bad idea really depends on the context that your charity operates in.  Regardless of which approach your charity takes, being transparent and consistent in how your policy is applied will go a long ways to reducing friction with Millennial staff members on this issue.

Looking ahead

Millennials are continuing to grow as a workplace demographic, and bring with them a desire to make a difference in their world.  This is good news for Christian charities.  Like each generation before, Millennials have grown up within a context that has shaped how they think about work and caused them to form ideas and opinions that may be quite different than those of Gen X and Baby Boomers.  Older generations can learn much from this demographic, like asking a Millennial to mentor them in how to better leverage technology like social media. Generational differences in the workplace are nothing new, but seeing these differences as a strength and being open to new ways of doing things represents a tremendous opportunity for charities.

The post Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation appeared first on CCCC Blogs.