Christyl Buchanan, Executive Director of Human Resources at Gateway Church, shares behind the scenes details about of one of the largest churches in the United States. Gateway Church has grown to over forty-thousand-weekend attenders and over six-hundred staff. They say they are 'all about people'. Listen in as Christyl describes how leadership members 'walk the talk' with their staff and care about the spiritual, relational, and professional wellbeing of every employee.
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In this episode:
- "Our leadership has set a really strong foundation for healthy and thriving culture for our congregation and our staff." (02:48)
- Having a social covenant with a clear mission and values (03:19)
- What makes Gateway Church so distinctive? (04:00)
- "I’ve really come to learn that an organization's culture is cultivated from the top down." (04:29)
- "God's all about all people." (06:05)
- Employee engagement for many churches averages about fifty-five percent (06:28)
- One of the many takeaways of surveying your people is realizing that employee engagement at Gateway Church rose from sixty-four percent to seventy-four percent! (06:43)
- 15-5 is an amazing system to use to keep your employees engaged (08:20)
- A weekly check-in, giving a high five, one-on-one meetings with managers (08:25)
- Weekly video updates from leadership (09:10)
- What is the Fun Squad? (10:28)
- What's a weekly check-in and how is that different from a one-on-one meeting? (12:29)
- One of Gateway’s biggest improvements has been what we call the Healthy Community factor. What goes into building a healthy workplace community? (16:08)
- One inspiring before-and-atter story of an individual, team, or entire department that experienced a break-through that led to a new level of enjoyment, collaboration, and effectiveness (18:26)
- In Christyl's leadership role, what has inspired or challenged her to learn and grow? (21:00)
- Three specific strengths of Gateway's culture. These three drivers of flourishing culture affect many churches and organizations (22:37)
- How has Gateway paid attention to and made progress with compensating your people? (23:00)
- A story of how compensation has really been important through this pandemic, and more recently through these terrible winter storms (24:27)
- One or two insights about what's behind inspirational leadership at Gateway Church? (26:33)
- Why are well-functioning, productive teams so vital in a large church like Gateway? (29:45)
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Read a complete, word-for-word transcript of the episode.
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