Staffing Practices

Hire, support, and transition your staff confidently with the assistance of this evolving collection of resources and templates. Over time, we plan to add job description templates, model employment agreements, and more.

• 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.
• 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.
• New for Summer 2017! Ensure that new staff receive a proper welcome and that sound onboarding protocol is followed. We’re providing a Welcoming and Onboarding Checklist in two formats – in Excel for customizing and/or working with on your computer, and as a PDF for easy printing. 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.
  • Welcoming and Onboarding Checklist (Excel)
  • Welcoming and Onboarding Checklist  (PDF)
  • Feedback survey 
• 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, resources 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: