Mark Griffin is founder and Chief Consultant at In His Name HR LLC. He has over 20 years of HR experience. Follow Mark on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Want to make High Performance HR Systems including Employee Relations a reality in your organization? Contact Mark and make it happen.
Today’s churches sit empty. More than any other time in history, your employees spend increased amounts of time commuting to and from work, working in their workplaces, and working evenings and weekends, disengaged from their families and communities. These increased hours have resulted in employees spending more waking hours at work than they spend at home with their families, with friends or volunteering in their communities. Because of this, we all have an opportunity and a mission: a mission to reach those who need saving. This is the world’s untapped harvest, a field of opportunity. And, as God proclaims, we need more workers into his fields.
Matthew 9: 35-38 (NIV) The Workers Are Few 35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
According to Pew’s 2014 Religious Landscape Survey, those who say they go to church or another house of worship at least once a week fell from 39 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2014. This number is probably misleading because many people may have embellished their attendance a bit out of a sense of guilt or obligation! However, assuming it is accurate that would leave a whopping 65% of U.S. residents not attending any religious services each week. This is a concern, because it clearly proves that, statistically speaking, your employees are probably not spiritually grounded.
This is where Christian business owners and executives
must step in to help God fill the void.
As a human resources professional with 25 years of experience in both public and private companies, I can tell you from firsthand experience that the lack of faith in our workplace affects every aspect of the workplace. Employees’ lack of time to focus on their own spiritual needs will undoubtedly affect productivity, quality and safety. Harder to measure but just as important, it affects their own and their coworkers’ morale. Employees lacking in faith will bring far more problems to the workplace than those who are seeking God or are Christ followers.
You can try to run your business without God.
Or you can include Him in your plans.
I urge you to include Him.
God is the ultimate business partner!
Therefore, those of us that are hesitant to embrace Christianity in the workplace must really look at it not only from a spiritual perspective, but from a business perspective as well. Far from being self-serving, this shows the attitude of a responsible business owner, attempting to prosper their business for the financial security and future of their employees and employees’ families.
If you are a business owner, sometimes you might feel like your the only christian in the workplace. Often times these feelings are not necessarily accurate. They are real feelings, but we find many organizations have faithful Christians working along each other, they just are not aware of it because of the fear of talking about faith at work. We are not in the business of creating “religious companies”, on the contrary we are in the business of helping to create a “Kingdom Minded” company. There is a big difference.
Makes Financial Sense
Leading a company with Christ-centered values just makes good business sense. I believe that Christ-centered organizations can experience:
What I have found to work
You must have a Vision, Mission, and Core Values. Many business professionals stop there. I urge all of you to go further. Integrate your core values into your Human Resources practices. This will:
Don’t just hang your Vision, Mission, and Core Values on the wall! Integrate, Integrate and then Integrate some more. Get your values into your culture and make it an intrinsic part of the way you work.
I believe that employees who work for an outwardly faith-based Christian organization are committed at a different level than those in non-faith-based organizations. Employees are more likely to go the extra mile, to trust their leadership, to deliver on their promises and be led by those who demonstrate Christ-like servant leadership, because they can!
Feel free to reach out to me and ask for my assistance in helping you develop and prosper a “Kingdom Minded” company. Contact Us
Have you worked for a company that has been outward in their faith? What were some of the obstacles the leadership faced? What were some of the benefits that the company enjoyed because of their desire to lead with principles? What’s your opinion? we would like to know.
Post your comments below-
1 Timothy 6–10
But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
In this passage we learn that, if we have food and clothing, we will be content. But many of us are not content. Christian Business Leaders must recognize this and take heed: we are to be the light to our employees, to be the beacon and the example.
Church should not be the only place you grow the kingdom for God.
How many times do we fail ourselves and our people when we don’t take the well being of all of our employees into consideration when making decisions? How often do we think only of growing the kingdom for God at our church, but not at our workplace? Where is our heart when it comes to making the hard decision in benefits design, and, rather than encouraging and developing healthy behaviors, we instead punish and increase premiums without appropriate consideration?
If you first love your brothers and sisters within your companies, if you truly care for them by engaging them in the decision making and future building of your company, if you partner with them for the good of themselves and their families, you are building a “Kingdom Minded” company.
Help our community of readers
How have you engaged your employees in the decision making and future building of your company? What advice would you give to those who have never done so? Thank you for your thoughts. Your contribution helps others.
I was honored to be interviewed by Alan Collins who was VP– HR at PepsiCo who I worked with when I led HR for several different business units for the Quaker Oats Organization. Alan is now the Founder of Success in HR, Inc. and the author of the HR best seller, UNWRITTEN HR RULES. His new book, BEST KEPT HR SECRETS is now available on Amazon.
Alan and several of my closest contacts have been an absolute blessings and encouragement to my new venture- Thank You Alan and God Bless you and your work.
Here are my 7 tips- Read the article in it’s entirety here: 7 Tips For Leaving Your HR Job
1. “Be clear and specific on the HR value you provide to your clients…and stick with it.”
2. “Network with many – but take advice from a few.”
3. “Start planning and strategizing long before you get downsized or decide you want to move on.”
4. “Find your strength and build on it.”
5. “Balance your life.”
6. “Find a Church home if you don’t have one.”
7. “Find a hobby you enjoy and do it!”
What tips meant the most to you? We would love to hear from you. What tips have we missed? Let us know we will include them in future articles.
