Staffing Practices

Hire, support, and transition your staff confidently with the assistance of this evolving collection of resources and templates.

Hiring and Supporting Staff

• From Starting to Parting (PDF) helps congregations hire, support, and transition their staff. Written specifically with religious education and music staff in mind, most of the information is more broadly applicable.
• Responsible Staffing, including background and reference checks
• Our Welcoming and Onboarding Checklist  (PDF) (or Welcoming and Onboarding Checklist (Excel)) can help you ensure that new staff are properly welcomed and that essential paperwork is properly handled. This is a “beta version,” intended to be improved based on user (that’s you!) experience. Tell us what you think by filling out this feedback survey.
• Staffing for Diversity articles recommend sound practices for supporting diversity on your staff.

Leading Staff

• These videos (about 20 minutes each) were created especially for those who are new to staff team leadership and supervision:
  • The Ministry of Leading Staff, Part 1: Team Ministry
  • The Ministry of Leading Staff, Part 2: Supervision
• Our Congregational Staff Teams page contains a comprehensive list of resources, with sections on collaborative leadership, supervisory relationships, and more.

Personnel Guidance and Templates

• Sign up for Compensation and Staffing News, a monthly publication from the Office of Church Staff Finances that provides tips and resources on compensation, staffing, and personnel.
• See Policies for Congregational Personnel for safe congregations policies and a sample employee handbook.

Job Descriptions and Performance Management

This generic Position Description Template includes guidance and examples for each section.

Our Performance Evaluations page lists tips, traps, and trends for performance reviews to help you create a useful, meaningful process for your staff.

Model Employment Agreement

Coming later in 2019: a model employment agreement for staff that's based on our model ministerial agreement.

General Assembly Resources

• General Assembly 2017 workshop slides:
  • Compensation: Considerations and Complications in a Changing World (PDF): Learn about compensation philosophy and the evolution of the UUA’s Compensation Program. Led by Jan Gartner and Rev. Richard Nugent.
  • Staff Conundrum: Creative Responses to Challenging Problems (PDF): The economic sustainability of congregations and professionals is in tension with rising personnel costs and needs. Explore technical and adaptive approaches to this conundrum. Led by Jan Gartner, Connie Goodbread, and Rev. Richard Nugent.
  • All’s Well that Ends Well: Staff Departures (PDF): Consider good practices for healthy staff departures and how to help congregants make meaning out of change. Led by Jan Gartner and Rev. Dr. Lisa Presley.
• Got New Staff? Set Them Up for Success! is a General Assembly 2016 workshop that covers formal administrative onboarding, proven practices for welcoming and orienting staff, and preliminary steps for establishing strong ongoing staff support through professional development, performance management, and team-building. Presented by Jan Gartner and Rev. Dr. Lisa Presley. Here's the video: