Staff Care and Human Resources Who Do You Want to Be as an Employer?

Part of Growing Administrative Capacity

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When it comes to taking care of your staff, there’s much to learn and do. This is an especially important part of congregational administration as it impacts employee well-being and quality of livelihood. It is also likely the largest area of your budget. Use your resources well!

Recall the Groundwork

Lay the groundwork for Staff Care and Human Resources. Both legal compliance and ethical considerations come into play in this area of administration.

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People

Priorities

Risk

Boundaries

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Key Resource Page

Check out the Congregations as Employers section of LeaderLab for a wide range of articles, tools, and templates in these areas:

  • Compensation, Benefit, and Payroll Resources

  • Hiring Staff

  • Staff Development and Support

  • Structuring Your Staff Team

See Where to Get Help below for additional sources of information and support.

Be Mindful of Common Mistakes

We often don’t know what we don’t know. Here are two areas in which we often see errors.

Worker Classification

Every worker in your congregation is either an employee or an independent contractor. Employees are further categorized as exempt or nonexempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act. These are legal distinctions! Misclassifying an employee is both a legal and an ethical lapse. State law may also come into play.

See the HR Legal Requirements section below.

Benefits Administration

Mistakes in this area can be costly in terms of time, money, legal consequences, and staff morale. Those who administer benefits must understand and tend to timely enrollment, proper payments, and other administrative responsibilities. Moreover, staff deserve clarity about benefits eligibility and costs. Do you have systems, policies, people, and backups in place to ensure good process in this critical area?

Review the Benefits Tune-up Workbook (for UUA benefits) and contact BenefitPlans@uua.org for help.

HR Legal Requirements

Worker Classification Resources

Additional Topics

  • Payroll and Taxes for Ministers (Ministerial payroll looks different from that of other employees due to special tax provisions.)
  • Employment Agreements and Letters of Hire (For at-will employees, which typically includes your non-clergy staff, use a letter of hire rather than a “contract.”)
  • Hiring Staff Under the age of 18
  • Equal Employment and Antidiscrimination: As Unitarian Universalist congregations, we value the inclusion of all individuals regardless of race, color, national origin, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. These values are reflected in laws which may or may not apply to a congregation. However, the standards set by Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act provide the minimum standards which congregations should seek to meet (if not exceed).

Hiring, Onboarding, and Terminating Employees

Payroll and Benefits

The sections above include resources for worker classification, ministerial payroll, and benefits administration.

Here are other payroll-related areas that require strong systems, thoughtful practices, and good training (including backups):

  • Time-off tracking
  • Payroll entry
  • Timesheet monitoring and approval

Managing Relationships

For Staff

Being intentional and proactive about the following can help insure smooth administrative operations through healthy relationships:

  • Creating a Covenant of Right Relations among staff
  • Discussing and ensuring shared expectations of the supervisory relationship
  • Having common understandings about the administrator’s relationship to the board, finance, and personnel leaders

For Volunteers

For leaders who work in personnel, finance, and often other areas, shared understandings about roles and relationships can make a world of difference. Consider:

  • Clarifying the relationship of volunteer leaders to administrative staff
  • Determining sources of oversight and support for these key volunteers
  • Providing role clarity for volunteers (Some find value in job descriptions for volunteers.)
  • See these Board Committee pages in LeaderLab: 

Documenting Practices

Documenting administrative practices is critical. Ask yourself:

  • How does our congregation do this?
  • Are our procedures written down?
  • Are existing policies sufficient? (Approve new if needed.)
  • Are legal and values implications understood?

Where to Get Help

Within Your Congregation

  • Personnel and finance teams
  • Personnel policies
  • Operational rules or bylaws

Beyond Your Congregation