10 Action Steps For Your Next Staff Member Transition 

By: Neil Miller

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Neil Miller is the Church Solutions Manager for KiSSFLOW and a Ministry Partner of Vanderbloemen Search Group. 

It’s always hard to lose someone from your team, even if the decision is mutual. Emotions can flow deeply – from sadness, to anger, to hope for what might be coming next.

But in the midst of all those emotions, you might forget some important steps as you offboard the employee. If you don’t have effective systems in place, you could leave your team open to risk, especially if the transition is a turbulent one. Smart churches have systems in place for when someone transitions off the team to help protect both the church and the individual.

Here are ten tasks you should consider as you face a staff transition:

1. Inform the right people.
 
Employee resignations are often where miscommunication wreaks havoc. Have the elders been informed? Do you need to make an announcement at a staff meeting? Do you need to let the whole congregation know? This is the time for careful consideration of how the news gets communicated and who needs to know. 
 
 
2. Perform an exit interview.
 
Exit interviews are a great chance to get brutally honest feedback about your church and the culture around the office. Done right, they can greatly impact where you focus your improvements and can greatly help in retaining your current team. 
 
 
3. Revoke building access.
 
You don’t want someone to walk out on their last day with key cards or spare keys to any part of your building. This is a major security risk and can cause problems and headaches down the road.
 
 
4. Revoke system access.
 
Just as important as your facilities is your software. Your church likely runs multiple software systems, so you need to make sure the employee is removed from all of them - your church management system, email accounts, and other specialty software. 
 
 
5. Collect passwords.
 
The resigning staff member might have set up some accounts with software or ecommerce websites that you’ll need after they leave. Do a thorough check and make sure you have the passwords you need to keep ministries running smoothly. 
 
 
6. Recover any hardware.
 
Collect any computers, phones, or other digital devices issued to the staff member from the church.
 
7. Clearly communicate the final payment.
 
Your payroll team will need to know the last working day and adjust the final salary for any unused vacation days or other payments/debts.
 
8. Inform about benefits.
 
If the employee is eligible, you’ll need to issue a statement about how long they will have access to healthcare, dental care and other benefits as a part of their employment. You’ll also need to connect with your insurance providers to remove the employee from your plans.

9. Get an updated address.
 
If the employee is moving, be sure to get an address where they can receive forwarded mail and stay in communication.

10. Establish rehire status.
 
You will want a record that shows if this person is eligible for rehire if they move back or apply for a position later on. Keep in mind that the person who replaces you in your position may not be aware of the full story in the future.

As you can see, these tasks cover many different departments and would be nearly impossible for one person to perform all on their own, but each one of them is essential to managing an employee resignation.

Rather than have one person responsible for the whole process, the smartest thing you can do is establish an automated process. An automated process will let you design a workflow that includes all the steps needed for a smooth resignation. This ensures that you don’t miss out on any of these tasks, and you also have a clearly documented audit trail.Employee resignation is just one of the many processes a church can automate to help ease their administrative burden and make things run smoothly.
 

To learn more about how your church can start the automation process, download this free ebook from KissFlow on The Beginner’s Guide to Church Automation.