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Staff Hiring

What Amazon Gets Right About Onboarding (That Your Church Might Miss)

Discover valuable insights on optimizing your church staff onboarding process by learning essential lessons from Amazon's successful onboarding practices in this blog post.

Amazon, Onboarding, Team

Learning Onboarding Lessons for Church Staff from Amazon

As you navigate the process of welcoming new members to your church staff, it's essential to give careful thought to the onboarding experience. Believe it or not, Amazon, the giant e-commerce conglomerate, can offer valuable lessons that churches can utilize for successful onboarding.

Noteworthy Practices by Amazon for Onboarding

Amazon Emphasizes Clarity Over Chaos

The e-commerce giant ensures that every new hire knows precisely where to go, who they'll meet, and what success looks like by the end of day one. This clarity is something that churches should aspire to when incorporating new team members.

Generating Systems Over Saviors

Amazon relies on systems, not superstars, to carry out its successful onboarding process. Their system bears the burden of onboarding, rather than relying on a singular person. Standardized processes are key for churches in maintaining consistency and providing a detailed roadmap for the first 30, 60, or more days for a new hire.

Amazon Practices Frequent Feedback Loops and Check-ins

Amazon frequently assesses the performance of every new employee because bad habits can start on day one. Rather than waiting for problems to escalate, feedback and check-ins should be built into your onboarding process. These feedback sessions are an opportunity for questions, clarity, and coaching.

Aligning Mission and Mechanics

Amazon ensures training videos, mission stories, and safety protocols align with their mission and the techniques to achieve it. Your onboarding process should combine the mission (why you do this work) and mechanics (how you do this work) too.

Embarking On a Conscious Onboarding Process

Ultimately, your onboarding process doesn't need to rival Amazon in size, but needs to be intentional, clear, and consistent. A thoughtful approach to onboarding leaves new hires feeling they're joining something meaningful and makes it clear how they can efficiently contribute.

Making just one change to your onboarding process can significantly improve the experience for your new hires and overall efficiency of your church staff. Remember, an employee's first day can leave a lasting impression. Make it count.

For further insights on the onboarding process, listen to today's Healthy Church Staff Podcast episode here.

Todd Rhoades

Todd Rhoades

Todd has invested over 30 years in serving churches, having served as a worship pastor for over 15 years, a church elder for more than a decade, and in various ministry leadership roles in both the business and non-profit sectors. As the original founder and developer of ChurchStaffing.com, Todd fundamentally changed the way thousands of churches search for pastors and staff on the internet. Todd is a graduate of Cedarville University, and lives in Bryan, OH with his wife, Dawn.

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