Closing the Technology Gap

I'm going to make a big assumption here: Some church staff members don't have a perfect match of skills for the technologies they are expected to use every day. 

There are different people on the staff (or volunteers, same story) and there are different jobs and assignments that have different skill needs.

Sometimes, a person's skills will perfectly match the job they're asked to do.  That's great!  (how often does that happen at your church?)

Occasionally, a person's skills will greatly exceed the needs for the job they're asked to do.  That might be a problem, but it might be a problem you're willing to live with.

What do you do when the person's skills fall short (especially WAY short) of the skills needed?

This last issue is something we seem to face often.  The nature of "ministry" often implies non-technical, and in most cases, even those of us in IT would agree that people skills and such are of great value.  Still, there are some "needed" things for staff to do that require some technology.  Or do they?

Considerations.  Well, we could change our hiring process and make sure that we only find ministry oriented people who are highly technical.  Yeah...that would work.  OK, maybe there are other options.  We could do more and better (and even more and even better...) training to bring people up to the necessarily technical skills.  Ministry-oriented people love spending days and days learning this technical stuff -- just ask them.  Or we could "support their socks off" and be extremely available to run along behind them any time they need help.  We've joked that for every ministry person who uses a notebook we should hire one more IT person to tag along and deal with their technology needs.  Or an alternative type of support would be to set up a group of people that can do anything, just ask them to do "whatever" for you.

OK, those all seem like "ok" answers, but they just don't have a GREAT feel to them.  There must be something else.  How about we change out all our technologies to something simpler.  (no, I'm not starting the Mac debate again!)  We can change the hard-to-use ChMS for one that's easy.  Oh wait, I haven't found that one yet, but let's just call that a detail.  We can eliminate passwords and WEP keys and other confusing things so that notebooks "just connect" from anywhere, automatically.  Let's go ahead and do full-time Cellular-style wireless all the time and eliminate that inconvenience.  And let's make sure no matter where a user stores a file, we find it, back it up, cross-index it, and it other words make it not only impossible to lose, but also very easy to find for next time when the user doesn't remember the name or where it's saved.

Darn...that line of thinking doesn't sound so great either.  Is there something else that helps?

What about "process?"  If processes are well defined (and in GTD thinking, "mindless") then does that help prevent problems, or at least help people recognize when they need to ask for help?  Hmmm...maybe that's a step in the right direction.  How do you define processes, and then how to you keep those processes where they're easy to find and follow? 

Comments

[Newsaddikt]

Always great stuff Tony. This makes 3 posts of yours I'm following w/ coComment.

My church is really putting forth an effort to hire ppl that are best suited for their position; not just a 'warm body.' It certainly makes a difference.

The best solution would be a combination of...change hiring processes, more & better training, sufficient IT support, change/simplify technologies, & define processes.

Lately, I'm really concentrating on defining processes on how the congregation interacts w/ the database.

[Tony Dye]

Hey Mike, I hope you'll be sharing some of your info from defining those processes!

[KevMc]

I would take the approach where we would

-define minimum technical skills for all staff. Different levels might exist for support staff, ministry support staff, and ministerial staff.
--define how (whether) exceptions would be handled (hire assistant).
--define minimum technical requirements for key technical jobs. Refuse to compromise here going forward.

Once these were defined, I would want to have formal testing in the interview process. I might go so far as to identify experts in the church to detail requirements for technical jobs.

At my church I told my senior pastor that I thought every pastor should take a computer and typing competancy test prior to hire. Failing this test would not mean we woudln't hire them, but it would determine how they would need to be supported. We're still negotiating this.

Not one of our pastors has an assistant so someone who can't use a PC is at a significant disadvantage and will frustrate our other staff.

My pastor requires everyone to use email and to reply to emails. That little requirement is powerful.

[Jim Walton]

Great post, Tony!

I see 2 elements in play here as I think this thru. The first one is determining standards for hiring staff and maybe these standards are not even necessary. How technical does a pastor or assistant or whatever need to be? Kevin's idea is decent, require a computer competency test, to at least have a gauge for what level of support you are getting into.

Defining hiring standards is fine but what about those that you've already hired, who may or may not be technically challenged (or may or may not be fully suited for their job functions).

The way to define processes is to document them. Not an easy task, that is for sure, but necessary. I have spent alot of time documenting things like how the server is setup, how to add a new user, new computer, new email, email address standards, email etiquette and standards regarding the internet, internet usage, etc.

The way to implement the process (documentation) is thru training. Training users how to use technology and training on what the standards are and what the expectations are, as well. Training also serves as a reminder for the process, so training once may not solve all problems. Probably it's best to train some things annually or at some interval, as a refresher.

Just my long winded thoughts.

[KevMc]

Good point Jim,

I think for existing support staff I would ask them to study and plan to pass the computer competancy test. There are carrots and sticks you can use to motivate this.

For ministry support staff I would eventually do the same. I would share with them the fact that without passing this we are at a disadavantage and they will have to be held to certain standards to ensure their inability to use our systems do not result in failure to meet productivity requirements.
This definitely requires documentation.

In a church setting, what you normally do is treat this individually as part of a process that will either save an individual's job or provide the justificaiton for transitioning them out of the job. This is not actually different for technical requirements than it is for other requirements. Let's face it. Technical employees may struggle in other areas.

I am of the opinion that you don't create these things just to have them unless you get big enough to justify that kind of work for contingency planning.

However, when you have to go through it once, you should document the process you went through and work to ensure it can be generalized if you believe this will be a recurring issue.

[Bob Brown]

"For some have been given the gift of computing, and the spirit has seen fit to grant it in different measures."
- Computations 6:40

Lack of computer skills is close to being illiterate these days, but most ministry people (and especially the older ones) are not able to get themselves up to speed very well. Consider it a combination of age and pride.

Some ministry related training videos and workbooks might be nice though.

Or, in some cases, they may need transparencies, filmstrips, slides, or flannelgraphs.

[Antoine of MMM]

Good article Tony. However, the permise of getting anyone trained in something that they are not quite so happy in doing is a matter in a lot of respects of transferring passion. Not too many technical folks I know are personable enough to do that. However, many who are enabled in such an oratory/teaching gift (as well as technical) should do so.

In so many cases though, there has not been enuogh inreach towards issues of admin and technology for an org to pull someone out and have them work in those areas of giftedness. Many times, a person hasto be brought in from the outside, and that causes its own set of issues and distractions, both for the ministry, and those who are serving that ministry.