Friday, June 29, 2018
Hey Fletch … Are my people working hard enough? Should we use time-cards for pastors?
DRF—This is similar to yesterday’s question about administrative assistants. People work incredibly hard when they have a compelling vision. When people speak into the tactics of implementing that vision, they work even harder.
I am not a fan of having time cards for pastors. Pastors are exempt from FLSA regulations, so time cards are not required. Some churches use them but pastors tend to not fill them out very well.
There are two main ways to measure “hard work.” One is through monitoring time—this is like a time and motion study. If you are making cogs, you can measure how many cogs each employee makes in an hour.
A better measure of “hard work” is by a qualitative analysis of the “product.” Through an in-print review and verbal dialogue, seek to answer these questions:
- Is the pastor fulfilling their job description? This requires a good job description that the pastor has agreed to! In that description, include percentages of time for the major categories. For example, the job description for a church evangelist might have 30% in doing evangelism, 30% in training others, 30% hands-on ministry and 10% meetings and office work.
- Ask for stories and examples of how the pastor is fulfilling the job description. Hear what is going on in their ministry and how it fulfills the church vision.
- Understand whether the pastor has added new areas to their job or has areas that should be deleted. Many roles become bloated with “important items” while “critical items” go undone.
Pastors want to work hard. They are driven by a gospel-centric desire to fulfill the Scriptures. Couple this drive with your church vision and hard work gets done.
