PODCAST | Tips To Retain Your Staff (feat. Jenni Catron)

The great resignation still affects organizations of all sizes. In this conversation, Jenni shares key tips for retaining your staff. We are thankful for her wisdom and guidance on leadership, culture, and strategy through this discussion.

If we can help you further your mission, contact us to get started.

Resources:

https://jennicatron.com/

https://www.get4sight.com/

https://www.vanderbloemen.com/compensation

https://www.get4sight.com/cultureconference

Transcript:

Christa Reinhardt:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Reinhardt, senior marketing coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, William speaks with one of our strategic partners, Jenni Catron, founder and CEO of The 4Sight Group. Jenni's an author, speaker, and leadership expert passionate about inspiring and equipping ministry leaders. Her goal is to cultivate extraordinary leaders to lead with clarity and confidence. The great resignation still affects organizations of all sizes. In this conversation, Jenni shares key tips for retaining your staff. We are thankful for her wisdom and guidance on leadership, culture, and strategy through this discussion. We hope you enjoy the talk.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, hey, everybody. Thanks for joining me today. This is probably a pretty dumb podcast for me to host. I mean, true confessions, this podcast is basically how you don't ever have to hire me. You don't ever have to do a search again because we've got Jenni, and I think, right, it's Catron, not "Patron."

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Jenni's with us and she's going to tell us how to retain your current staff. Now, you may have some staff that you really don't want to retain, that's a different conversation, different podcast, but I think this is the competitive advantage that people need to be chasing for the next 10, 15 years. We can go into reasons why, but the people who can keep their staff a little bit longer will win. How do you not have to hire William? That's what we're talking about today. Jenni, maybe you could talk a little bit about, I think everybody knows you're the queen of culture. You got a culture problem, you go to Jenni. I wonder if you'd just kind of give us an overview of where you're seeing this whole culture conversations, retention. Why now? I've heard culture for years? Why all of a sudden are we having to listen to this again?

Jenni Catron:
Yeah, that's good. Well, thank you for all of that. It isn't my goal to put you out of business, William. I feel like we just have such a great partnership and it's a both and, right, because a healthy and growing culture still needs to add additional team members.

William Vanderbloemen:
There you go.

Jenni Catron:
Maybe it's not a bunch of replacement, but it's the addition of staff because we're growing.

William Vanderbloemen:
There you go.

Jenni Catron:
Which is why people need Vanderbloemen. No, you and I have both been passionate about this subject for probably as long as we can remember, but this idea of healthy staff culture, I believe, has always been exceptionally critical, but I think after the couple of years of chaos that we've experienced and how much it's impacted our work dynamics, it's impacted all of our worlds and all of our lives, but for organizations, the dynamics of our team have been really just rattled, and that's been to varying degrees depending on where you are, what type of organization that you are, and whether you got staff back to the office sooner than later, whether you had to be remote for an extended period of time, depending on where you live, and what part of the country that you're in, or whether you decided to do something more hybrid or work from home as more of a permanent solution.

Jenni Catron:
Every organization I'm talking to has had some level of upheaval around the connection and engagement of their staff, even if it's just the fixed physical proximity to one another, right? That was adjusted at least for a short time. But for many, I'm working with some organizations where they're still not back in-person, and now the questions are becoming, "Are we going to stay remote? Are we going to do hybrid now? What are the expectations?"

Jenni Catron:
But all of that has splintered connection for team members. That's why I think it's so critical that leaders are looking at this and going... Every leader's felt it, every leader's felt the bit of disconnect with their staff, and the difficulty it is in getting people rallied and connected around a sense of purpose and mission, and again, to varying degrees. But then that's been compounded by the questions team members are asking now. There's some interesting research that is coming out. Barna has been doing some research that and I've read in a number of different places about just what employees actually want now. I saw stat this morning that said 60% of want a flexible work schedule. 60%. Then 25% are considering leaving their job. That's probably the lowest percentage I've seen. I've seen up to 40% of people are considering moving, changing jobs. There's just kind of this-

William Vanderbloemen:
That's the whole game. The part of me that's young and flexible and wants to move is like, "Yeah, cool. Let's enter the new age." The part of me that's an old curmudgeon is like, "Yeah, I want to eat a pint of ice cream every day, too, and that's not going to work." It doesn't matter what you want, it's what's going to get the work done, and I need you in the office. How do you see people walking that tightrope? Because I think there's a wider chasm between employer expectations and employee desires than there has been in a long time.

Jenni Catron:
... That's good, yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
I mean, you see it, NFL quarterbacks all of a sudden say, "I want to play for a different team." Well, that was unheard. There's a whole employee, I don't want to use the word "entitlement" because then it sounds bad, but it's bordering right up against.

Jenni Catron:
Yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
How are you seeing people manage that, "Hey, we got to do this to get the work done, but hey, I only want to work on Mondays and from 10:00 to 10:15"?

Jenni Catron:
Yeah. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I love how you framed that, of that chasm between what the employee wants and what really the employer needs. We're stuck because there's the "war on talent" where finding good talent is exceptionally hard right now, the market is competitive, and so-

William Vanderbloemen:
Almost competitive enough to hire a search firm.

Jenni Catron:
... Almost, yes, as one should, instead of burning a lot of time and energy trying to hunt people down.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sorry.

Jenni Catron:
No, I love it. I love it. Hey, it's part of it. But yes, there is that dynamic. Then what I feel from a lot of employers is this pull to, "I need to just cater to whatever need or whim or want that I'm seeing," and so I think there's a both and, right? We need to be aware of what the expectation is because this era, these past couple of years, has given employees a taste of what that flexibility looks like, and so they think they want that. As organizational leaders, we have to figure out how do we create a compelling enough sense of purpose and mission, and then clarify what it looks like to be a part of this culture and this team. This is what this is coming down to is organizational leaders providing really good clarity of why we do what we do and how we do it, which that, to me, is the definition of culture, of who we are, and how we work together to achieve a mission.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's so good. That's so good.

Jenni Catron:
Leaders have to provide that clarity and then give the why, "Okay, so this is why we have core hours on Tuesday through Thursday from 10:00 to 4:00," or 10:00 to 3:00, or whatever it might be, or, "This is why we actually do need to be in the office the majority of the time because we have a really collaborative nature in how we work together and that helps us produce the best whatever we do and the mission we serve." At the same time, I think it's pushing us as employers to go, "Okay, where can I give a little flexibility?"

Jenni Catron:
But here's where this gets us, William, and I think this is specifically for, I see this a lot in church and faith-based organizations, is we're afraid to give the flexibility because we have not historically had great cultures of accountability, and you can't have flexibility without accountability.

William Vanderbloemen:
Hmm. Oh, say that again. Say all that again. That's the tweet right there. Say it again. That was so good.

Jenni Catron:
Yeah, you can't have flexibility without a culture of accountability.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Jenni Catron:
Our version, and I'm guilty of this, William, you know I sat in an exec pastor seat for 12 years, my version of accountability for a long time was that you were here. If you were here in the office with me, I could see you, I knew what you were doing. I had a general sense, I had a better sense of whether you were getting your job done and you were connecting with people and calling people back and getting volunteers in for stuff, or whatever it might be, but we often don't know how to do accountability well, so then we're terrified of offering flexibility because we don't have good behaviors, cultures of accountability.

Jenni Catron:
That's the thing we have to learn as leaders is how do we create better accountability so that then we can offer appropriate flexibility. Again, I think the flexibility is completely dependent on your organization, how you work as a team, the level of collaborative required, who you serve all goes back to purpose, right? That structure of your staff and your office time has to really serve the strategy, the mission of your organization.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, and I think we are in a season, and I'd love to hear your opinion on this, but I think there's seasons of transition. I get asked to speak. Now, don't you want to go to this conference, a conference for search consultants? There is this kind of thing and it's a weird deal.

Jenni Catron:
That's awesome.

William Vanderbloemen:
But I get to go, we're kind of turning things upside down the way search has been done traditionally in the corporate world, so they'll come ask me to speak at things. I was standing around with these old guys one day, and I mean "old" by they've been doing search for 40, 45 years, which is about as long as it's been being done in the country, so I'm like, "What was it like when you were 40?" One guy says to me, "Do you know why I always booked a first-class ticket?" I'm like, "I don't know, you fly all the time? You upgrade food." He said, "No, first off the plane is the easiest way to get a payphone."

Jenni Catron:
That's crazy.

William Vanderbloemen:
The other guy standing there, Jenni, he said, "I know where every gas station in the state of Texas is that has a payphone," and so I just thought, "How different is our world now?" If I'm stuck in an airport for an hour, I can actually get work done.

Jenni Catron:
Totally.

William Vanderbloemen:
It's not the best, but I think we're in a season. I was reading Leviticus the other day, as one does. It was actually a one-year Bible plan and I noticed there was-

Jenni Catron:
I was going to say, I'm actually in Leviticus, too, so we must be in the same one-year Bible plan.

William Vanderbloemen:
... They go through all this super, I'm sure it's interesting if you're smart, but I'm not smart enough for it to be interesting, this kind of thing gets sacrificed here and this kind of thing, and you use the guts, but not these guts, and dah, dah, dah, dah.

Jenni Catron:
Yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
All this sacrifice. Okay, so we're finally done with the sacrifice. Now, we're going to get to, and your other duties as a priest are, and the very first one, it's really good, I wish I had the first citation, but "It's now your next job is to tell the difference between what's eternal and what's just today."

Jenni Catron:
Oh, wow.

William Vanderbloemen:
Most translations say "sacred" and "normal," right, but the real meaning of the word is what's going to last and what's going to be gone? I think that is the trick. That's the discernment that leaders are facing right now.

Jenni Catron:
That's good.

William Vanderbloemen:
If you go down the street of everybody's going to stay at home for forever, that's toothpaste that doesn't go back in the tube, right?

Jenni Catron:
Right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Have you seen people coming up with good ideas on flexibility that have led to a good result?

Jenni Catron:
The second part of that is probably the question mark, that led to a good result. I think it's too early to tell.

William Vanderbloemen:
Hmm. Okay, fair enough. That's what we've decided.

Jenni Catron:
I think we're all experimenting and I think some of the most thoughtful leaders I've seen do this are doing the evaluation of, "Okay, when did we most need to be together? When was our best work produced? What's the greatest value of when we're together?"

William Vanderbloemen:
That's good.

Jenni Catron:
Then creating that, so that's where I'm seeing a lot of teams do core hours of, "Hey, these are core hours. This is when you're expected to be in the office. This is when we do our meetings. This is when we have more of a collaboration, et cetera. Here's the places where you have some flexibility, whether you come or not."

Jenni Catron:
It's interesting. I have one church that I've been working with and they were in a part of the country where coming back to the office was a little slower and so they just recently started their core hours thing, but they had started working into staff meeting and things were hybrid. They were in-person, but also online. What was really interesting, and this is where I think, again, as leaders, they were purposeful to make the in-person experience just a little bit richer. There was kind of a reward for showing up in-person, without saying there was a reward for showing up in-person. The real reward was the connection with each other and the time with each other, but they were also-

William Vanderbloemen:
Why is everybody meeting eating Chick-fil-A? Hmm.

Jenni Catron:
... That's exactly right, right? It was simple little things like that, but then people began to realize, "Oh, I missed the camaraderie and the connection just the time with my team," because so much of our work over the past couple years, especially if you've been primarily hybrid has become transactional, right?

William Vanderbloemen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jenni Catron:
It's like, I reach out when I need to get something from you, I reach out when I need to schedule a call so that we can correspond about this thing so we can get X done, and we've lost just those meaningful moments of connection in-between. But the problem is our team members don't always know how to identify that that's why they feel disconnected or that's why they feel maybe disengaged or they're considering another job because they feel like they're just going through the motions. Well, a good deal of that is the connection with one another. Until they experience that again, that they're not always conscious of, that's really what they need. Now, our extroverts kind of get that. Our extroverts are like, "Yes, please. Get me back. When can we do stuff together?" But our introverts, sometimes they have to be nudged into those environments to be reminded of why that's so meaningful.

Jenni Catron:
I think to answer your question, because I went on a bit of a tangent, I think just experimenting with, and that's what I've encouraged teams, whatever rhythm you set you, first of all, you need to clarify and you need to set expectations around whether we're in person or not or hybrid or what, get clear about that and set the expectations, really articulate why. Why do we have core hours and why is that important? But then set it for, hey, we're going to try this for six months because we're still trying to dial in what's the right rhythm that helps us all succeed.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's the old... Well, you served in the traditional church for a while. In the traditional church, where it's like, in too many worship services it's not fill in the room. How do you kill one of the services? For the summertime, we're going to cut this, just for the summertime, and then you wait and see. If you get people a terminal... I've said to our lead team around here, "I'm not making any more decisions until another year's gone by. Give me a year and we'll take a look at it and we'll talk, but give me a year," and so far, it's working.

William Vanderbloemen:
But now, I think what people are starting to see from where I'm sitting, and I want to hear if you see this as well, I mean, before the world turned upside down two years ago, I was already seeing more turnover. A lot of that's generationally-driven. I'm the generation that remembers when Fox started because that meant there were four channels and not three.

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Not for the politics, just a fourth option. Millennials are actually kind of geriatric now, but whether it's millennials or Gen Z, they're used to however many channels I want. I think a lot of that age of choice has led to shorter stays at a particular company, church, mission, organization. I think that the church used to be if you made a bunch of money and you now want to do something significant, you think, "Well, maybe I'll go work for my church," but now, you can do something significant making a chicken sandwich for Chick-fil-A. You can do something significant working at Hobby Lobby. I mean, every company's got a cause. There's just a lot of reasons why I was seeing turnover before the pandemic. Layer on that a great resignation. I don't think the 25-year run in one place is going to be, I don't think we're going to see that again, at least for a long time.

William Vanderbloemen:
To me, if you can change the average length of stay, like if you think you're going to keep people forever, you need to get over that. By the way, pastors, I'm going to be a little mean right now. Please don't tell me about your staff. They're not yours.

Jenni Catron:
That's good.

William Vanderbloemen:
They belong to Jesus. Jesus got in trouble with His friends for moving from town to town and village to village. "Why do we have to? Why can't we stay here?" "No, we got to move on." When your people move on, it's just a kingdom redeployment, and it's going to happen.

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
I think the ballgame's no longer, how do I keep them forever?" It's like, how do I change a three-year stay into a five-year stay?

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Is that where the culture conversation is right now?

Jenni Catron:
Yeah, I think that's really good. I love your perspective on that, too, is we are stewards for a season. I mean, that's one of my eat convictions about leadership is that it's sacred work because we have this opportunity to influence the people in our span of care for a season and we have the power to change our effect, their life, their story, what's going on with them, et cetera, and so we get this stewardship of the team that we do have for this season, and it is for season.

Jenni Catron:
I think we have to recognize that the better job I'm doing of stewarding those individuals. It's a dual stewardship, right? It's like I have the responsibility to steward the unique individuals that God has gifted me for this team, these individual humans, and then I have the stewardship of the mission and that's the tension I have to manage, right, is that I am both trying to caretake this team of staff that I'm entrusted with and make sure we're on mission, and so sometimes those things feel a little bit in conflict, depending on what this team of staff are requesting at any given time.

Jenni Catron:
I do think we have to be mindful of how do I appropriately care for, lead, develop this team of people to help me achieve this mission? The more that I'm on mission, you set this just that everybody has a cause and a purpose. This is an opportunity for the church because this is what we're hearing from younger generations, by the way, is that they want to be a part of something with meaning and purpose and significance and gracious we as the church have an amazing opportunity to be really clear about that.

Jenni Catron:
Again, you said it at the beginning of the podcast, the competitive advantage, the competitive advantage is that we arguably the greatest purpose to call people, to and compel them to come and work alongside of us, so I just think leaning into that, being really clear about that, helping them see how their gifts and their talents connect with the role that we've given them and how that connects to the greater purpose of the work we do, I say sometimes as leaders, our biggest job is connecting the dots, right? I'm just making sure that every person on my team knows how they connect to the greater purpose of the work that we're doing. I think being clear about that, that's going to shape culture, but then being intentional with this is who we are, this is what we value, these are the behaviors that reflect those values, and when we're doing this, this is how we're able to achieve our mission and flourish in doing it.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's good.

Jenni Catron:
Leaning into those things, I think, do help elongate that tenure on staff with us.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, okay, there's one. I'm going to put you in the hot seat, because we're getting close to the end of our time. The biggest one, preach your vision more than you ever have, preach your cause more than you ever have. If you can't think of what your cause is, let me give you your cause. Overpopulate heaven, that's a cool cause.

Jenni Catron:
That's great.

William Vanderbloemen:
It's a positive way to say it. "Underpopulate hell," if you need to say it that way, but whatever.

Jenni Catron:
I love that. That's awesome.

William Vanderbloemen:
Okay, other than preach your vision, what would be a couple of keys to extending retention with staff that you see so that people don't have to hire me?

Jenni Catron:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so again, being really clear about your purpose.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sure.

Jenni Catron:
Secondarily, being really clear about how we work together. I've referenced this a couple of times, and you guys model this at Vanderbloemen, what are those core values that guide our behavior as a team, right? What are the core values that when we are all aligned around these things, this helps me understand how do I succeed here in this team? It's all about clarity, right? It's like as leaders, providing clarity for our team is one of the most critical things we can do, and so clarity of purpose, but then clarity of values and behaviors, of this is what it means to succeed here. That's my biggest encouragement. If you haven't defined a set of values that guide the behavior of your staff, starting there. Now, that cascades into a number of activities that help, that actually become part of your operating system, so to speak. It's not just enough to declare them and then never come back to them, we have to build them into the ecosystem, but that's really key.

Jenni Catron:
Then the other thing is great leadership, is that you're to team needs your time. I often tell pastors, "Your first congregation is your staff," and they're like, "Whoa," because we're so focused as ministry leaders to be thinking about the whole congregation, but your staff, that's your first team to care for. That's your first congregation to serve and pour into. Oftentimes, they get our leftovers. We're so busy doing all the other responsibilities of ministry that we're not giving appropriate time. I'm not talking about a necessary time, or placating every demand or whim or whatever, but intentional time where you're meeting one-on-one with that individual, you're helping coach them, give them direction, help answer the questions, provide the feedback, create those conversations that create accountability, right? That intentional time, seeing yourself as that coach leader for that staff person is going to just expedite their learning, but also build that relationship that keeps them well-connected to what we're doing.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's so good.

Jenni Catron:
I would say purpose, values, leadership.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. Let me add one other one. Money.

Jenni Catron:
Oh, that's good.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sorry.

Jenni Catron:
I mean, like it or not, you got to pay them.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, Jesus didn't work for money. Our staff didn't. I'm going to disagree with you, Jenni. Your first parish is your home.

Jenni Catron:
Fair.

William Vanderbloemen:
If you can't provide for your house, then you're worse than an unbeliever. A lot of you people out there that are listening are going to quit listing because I'm going to tell you're underpaying your people.

Jenni Catron:
This is true.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's why I have a job sometimes. Sometimes people leave over $5,000. You could probably save yourself a lot of headache if you would do an... We're seeing a tidal wave surge in people saying, "Can we please use your compensation tool?" Which is very inexpensive, but just, "Tell us what we need to be paying."

William Vanderbloemen:
I'll take it one step further. It may not be your highest-paid people, but there might be people that are critical to the mission for the next year, like we're in a building campaign, so it's this one, or we're in a capital campaign, so it's this, or whatever the thing is you're trying to get done for your city. Who's mission-critical for the next year or two. How do you put them on a bonus if they stay? A deferred compensation, a retention bonus?

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
These are tools that churches have never talked about before, but the smart ones are starting that conversation.

Jenni Catron:
That's good.

William Vanderbloemen:
I know it sounds crass, sounds like you're paying for ministry. Well, they are people and their first parish is their home. That's good. You can't change that, so yeah. Yeah.

Jenni Catron:
Yeah, that's really good.

William Vanderbloemen:
There it is. Do those four things and you won't have to hire me.

Jenni Catron:
Or me, for that matter.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, no kidding. Nah, but you need to say that-

Jenni Catron:
Just save yourself a lot of money.

William Vanderbloemen:
... No, the staff is a fully staffed kingdom would be fine with me. I'd be glad to be out of work for that.

Jenni Catron:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. Well, listen, I appreciate you so much. You're helping so many churches.

Jenni Catron:
Likewise.

William Vanderbloemen:
I'm so looking forward to our time together at the Culture Conference, which is coming up when, Jenni?

Jenni Catron:
It is coming up August 11th, Culture Conference 2022.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's right.

Jenni Catron:
We'll have registration and things will be open soon, so just mark your calendars, and then you'll hear all about it.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's fantastic. Well, listen, if you want to follow Jenni, you can go to get4, number 4, site.com, is that right? Did I remember that right?

Jenni Catron:
That's right. Yep, you did.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yep. Yep. Jenni Catron, it's not the tequila, it's... William, how do you know what a tequila is? That's a different podcast, too. Jenni Catron @jennicatron. Jenni, we love having you here.

Jenni Catron:
Thank you.

William Vanderbloemen:
You are one of the family, and everybody out there that's not using her, you need to call her and hire her together.

Jenni Catron:
Awesome.

William Vanderbloemen:
Thanks for joining us, Jenni.

Jenni Catron:
Thanks so much, William.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. Thank you for listening. Listen, if you want to get show notes, if you want all those things I just rattled off and written down, the compensation tool and Culture Conference, dah, dah, dah, dah, just go to vandercast.com. Give us your email. It's a segmented list. You're not going to get hit with, "Hey, do you want to move jobs?" It's just for the podcast, vandercast.com. Tune in again soon to hear another great conversation with people who are trying to make a big difference for Team Jesus.

Christa Reinhardt:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. We at Vanderbloemen help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website vanderbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen a podcast to keep up with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening.