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Why NGO and social enterprise employees leave and how to understand why
Staff at NGOs and social enterprises leave for funding, field and workload reasons as well as pay. How to understand why, listen early and act.
7 min readRead article
NGOs and Social Enterprises · Churches and faith-based organisations
HR for Churches and Faith-Based Organisations: Clergy, Volunteers and Community Trust
A church, temple, mosque, gurdwara or faith-based charity runs on calling, volunteers and the trust of a community. Here is how to organise paid staff, clergy and volunteers fairly and clearly.
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Share your requirementsA church, temple, mosque, gurdwara, monastery or faith-based charity serves a community through worship, teaching, welfare and often schools, clinics, hostels or relief work. The people involved range from clergy and religious teachers, who may be appointed by a body outside the organisation, to a small group of paid staff such as an administrator, accountant, caretaker, cook, musician or driver, and a much larger group of volunteers who give hours each week. A trust, board or committee of members oversees the work, and its members change over time. Roles often rest on devotion and personal relationships, so formal terms, pay scales and written duties may be thin. Money comes from donations, offerings and grants, and those who give expect careful use. Festivals, services and community drives make the calendar uneven, and many of those who serve are also members of the congregation, which makes a disagreement personal and public. If the organisation runs a school, a children's programme or a residential home, safeguarding and conduct become central concerns.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in churches and faith-based organisations, you may see
- Calling and employment are tangled
- Committees change and promises go with them
- Volunteers are many and lightly managed
- Safeguarding and conduct are assumed, not written
- Disagreements are hard to handle
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in churches and faith-based organisations
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Clergy, priests and religious teachers
- Administrators and office staff
- Accountants and treasurers
- Caretakers, cooks and facility staff
- Choir, musicians and ritual assistants
- Welfare, school and outreach workers
- Volunteer coordinators and volunteers
Where HR strains in churches and faith-based organisations
Calling and employment are tangled
Clergy and long-serving helpers are expected to serve without counting hours, so pay, rest and leave are rarely discussed and resentment builds quietly.
Committees change and promises go with them
A past board agreed an allowance or housing for a person, but nothing was written, and the new board disputes it.
Volunteers are many and lightly managed
People give time with no clear role, training or limit, and some are asked to handle cash, children or sensitive information without checks.
Safeguarding and conduct are assumed, not written
Where adults work with children or vulnerable people, expectations on behaviour and how concerns are raised sit in unspoken norms.
Disagreements are hard to handle
A complaint about a staff member or leader touches the whole community, and there is no agreed way to hear it fairly and privately.
HR topics for churches and faith-based organisations
Start with the topics that matter most here: Policies, Compliance and Governance; Employee Relations; Employee Engagement and Experience. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for ngos and social enterprises, not in general.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a churches and faith-based organisations business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Write simple terms for paid roles
A letter for each paid person covering role, hours, pay, leave, housing or allowances and reporting line, discussed in person first.
What this coversHide
Write simple terms for paid roles
A letter for each paid person covering role, hours, pay, leave, housing or allowances and reporting line, discussed in person first.
What this coversHideA letter for each paid person covering role, hours, pay, leave, housing or allowances and reporting line, discussed in person first. The HR documentation process gives the format.
Record board decisions on staffing
A short register of decisions on pay, allowances and appointments that each new committee receives.
What this coversHide
Record board decisions on staffing
A short register of decisions on pay, allowances and appointments that each new committee receives.
What this coversHideA short register of decisions on pay, allowances and appointments that each new committee receives. The HR policies and governance work shows how.
Give volunteers a role and a boundary
A one-page description of what each volunteer does, who guides them, how many hours are expected and which tasks need two people.
What this coversHide
Give volunteers a role and a boundary
A one-page description of what each volunteer does, who guides them, how many hours are expected and which tasks need two people.
What this coversHideA one-page description of what each volunteer does, who guides them, how many hours are expected and which tasks need two people. Cash handling and work with children need extra care. The employee engagement work supports a respectful programme.
Adopt a safeguarding and conduct code
Plain rules for adults working with children or vulnerable people and a named person to receive concerns, reviewed with a qualified professional.
What this coversHide
Adopt a safeguarding and conduct code
Plain rules for adults working with children or vulnerable people and a named person to receive concerns, reviewed with a qualified professional.
What this coversHidePlain rules for adults working with children or vulnerable people and a named person to receive concerns, reviewed with a qualified professional. The grievance and disciplinary process covers handling.
Set a fair, private route for complaints
A small panel, clear steps and confidentiality, so that a complaint is heard without becoming a congregation-wide matter.
What this coversHide
Set a fair, private route for complaints
A small panel, clear steps and confidentiality, so that a complaint is heard without becoming a congregation-wide matter.
What this coversHideA small panel, clear steps and confidentiality, so that a complaint is heard without becoming a congregation-wide matter.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- List every paid person with their duties and pay, and mark where terms are unwritten.
- Ask the treasurer which volunteers handle cash and what checks are in place.
- Check whether your current board has seen the earlier board's staffing decisions.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the trust, employment, volunteer and child-protection obligations that apply to your organisation and the activities it runs.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- HR documentation
Simple written terms for paid roles, so understandings do not depend on memory.
- HR policies and governance
A staffing policy and decision record that a changing board can follow.
- Grievance and disciplinary process
A fair, private way to hear complaints and concerns about conduct.
- Employee engagement and culture
Ways to thank and guide volunteers and paid staff so both feel valued.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in ngos and social enterprises, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
What should an employee handbook include?
A practical contents list for an employee handbook in a growing Indian business: what to cover, what to leave to policies, and how to keep it usable and current.
5 min readRead article
HR Process
A grievance procedure for a company with no HR department
An employee brings you a complaint about their supervisor. What happens next should not depend on who is in the room. A grievance procedure a small company can actually run.
8 min readRead article
HR Management
The engagement survey that made things worse
Eighty per cent responded, the report was thorough, and six months later trust was lower than before. What went wrong between the survey and the silence.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Written terms help both sides, even where a religious body appoints the person. Ask a qualified professional how your arrangement should be set out and who is responsible for what.
Give each a clear role, a named guide, set hours and training for sensitive tasks. Thank them regularly, and be open about what you cannot ask of them.
Use an agreed process with a small, fair panel, written records and confidentiality. Take advice from a qualified professional where the matter is serious.
Conduct with children and vulnerable people, supervision, communication, how concerns are raised and who receives them. A qualified professional should review it.
Keep a short register of staffing and pay decisions and hand it over each term. Changes should be made openly, with the person concerned.
We would listen to how clergy, paid staff and volunteers are actually arranged today, and where a calling and a job have become tangled. Usually we look at how committee decisions about staffing are recorded and how volunteers are given a role. A sensible first piece of work is simple written terms for the paid roles, with a safeguarding and conduct code to follow. Scope and fees are agreed in writing afterwards.
More on HR for ngos and social enterprises
All 7 business types in ngos and social enterprises · Find another business type
Museums and heritage sitesHome care and assisted livingCreches and day care centresGrant-making foundationsCommunity development organisationsHealth and nutrition NGOsPolicies, Compliance and Governance in ngos and social enterprisesEmployee Relations in ngos and social enterprisesEmployee Engagement and Experience in ngos and social enterprises
See all HR topics for ngos and social enterprises, or another industry.