The Catholic Church is steeped in millennia of tradition, ritual, and practice. Members appreciate the traditional values and grandeur of their Church, but they also expect modern conveniences and easy access to information. This is even more true for Churches that hope to attract and retain new employees. As more and more staff members approach retirement, this need is even more pressing.

Future-proof your systems to rely less on tribal knowledge.

Long-time staff members are important members of the church. They have a deep understanding of the membership body and what it takes to keep the church running smoothly. When these folks are around to help, upgrading your technology may seem like an unnecessary expense, especially when the budget is already tight.

The hard truth is that these valued staff members won’t be part of your operations team forever. According to Zippia, 71% of church workers will approach retirement age in the next 25 years. When these full-time staff members announce their retirement plans, your organization will be scrambling to replace their precious tribal knowledge about back-of-the-house operations, processes, accounting, members, and training derived from their years of service. Their replacements will be left to manually crunch numbers, manage siloed financials across the church community, and track down or organize paper records. If the church has a school, medical facility, charity, childcare facility or cemetery, managing inefficient operations becomes even more complex — and affects the well-being of the entire church.

With the right technology software for nonprofits, dioceses, parishes, or churches  can streamline their operations, track financial data with granularity, update processes, and obtain timely, useful data from online systems – no spreadsheets, paper copies, or dusty file folders required. Outsourced accounting services also take the burden off church staff members by helping with reporting, budgeting, forecasting and training. This is particularly helpful during times of staff transition in the church.

Attracting the new generation of church leaders

When older staff members retire, the church will look for new employees. And what’s one way to ensure these replacements are helping the church grow and keep up with changing times? Hire younger staff members.

These younger generations grew up with the Internet. They are technology-savvy and operate in a blended physical-digital world. And they expect their workplaces to be the same way. A recent Dell Inc. study found that a staggering 91% of the generation entering the job force now say the technology would influence their employment decision when comparing similar opportunities. The pandemic only heightened the use of technology in the workplace, as many employers have adopted hybrid working environments and other digital communication tactics.

Before a church can infuse technology into its outward-facing initiatives like live streaming, virtual study groups, book clubs, affinity clusters, and online community outreach, it must look at its internal operations. If you’re still functioning with handwritten records, physical file cabinets, and a plethora of spreadsheets, hiring and returning a younger church staff with expectations of technical assistance will be challenging.

Updating these systems and processes with innovative management systems and modern financial solutions for nonprofits will enable Catholic dioceses to keep in step with modern times, attract a more digital workforce — and provide church leaders with invaluable peace of mind as their staff members retire.

How JMT Consulting can help

JMT Consulting offers a wide variety of identifying and implementing tools to help you (and your operations) prepare for staff retirements, including:

• Expert software implementation, training and support
• Reliable, trusted accounting services from a team of experts through PowerUP
• Timely and accurate financial reporting
• Accurate and dynamic budgeting tools to help you get ahead of the curve and manage your church budget
• Business process and workflow improvement tools that update your processes to increase and streamline workflow
• Systems integration services that ensure all your tools work together to create meaningful insights
• Cemetery management systems that increase your cemetery sales and bring your mapping to the cloud

With JMT, a Sage Premier Partner, you don’t have to head into a new season alone: reach out to learn more about how our solutions can help drive success, create efficiencies and lessen the workload for staff members at your Catholic diocese. 

Contact us for a free consultation – https://jmtconsulting.com/contact-us/