# Staff Onboarding — the workflow your church has never had Most churches have never onboarded anyone. A new administrative assistant shows up, someone finds a key, the email gets created three weeks later, and Safe Gatherings comes up in month four when a volunteer asks. Larger churches have proper systems; everyone else has a shrug. This is the checklist that turns the shrug into a process — for any paid hire, and adaptable for key volunteers. ## Before you start Don't schedule a first day until these exist: - [ ] **A written job description**, developed with the pastor and approved per your staff policy (¶258.2g.12). If there isn't one, write it first — the [job-description templates](/jobs) exist so this takes an hour, not a month. - [ ] **A named owner for this checklist.** One person — usually the office administrator or the pastor — owns getting every box checked. A checklist owned by "the church" is owned by no one. - [ ] **The employment basics arranged**: pay rate and schedule confirmed with the treasurer, and the required federal/state employment paperwork identified. We deliberately don't summarize tax or eligibility forms here — use the IRS and USCIS official pages (see Elsewhere) and your payroll provider's checklist. ## The workflow ### Before day one - [ ] Offer letter or simple employment agreement signed; start date set. - [ ] Payroll set up with the treasurer/bookkeeper (rate, schedule, time-tracking method if non-exempt — check classification, don't guess; see Elsewhere). - [ ] Church email address created. **Record it — and every account this person will hold — in your account registry**, whatever form that takes: who owns it, who can reset it, where two-factor codes land. Recovery must never point at a personal cell alone. - [ ] Key or door code arranged; alarm code if applicable. Write down *that* they hold it (never the code itself) on the key log. - [ ] Safe Gatherings (or your conference's equivalent certification) application started — it takes days to weeks, so it starts before day one, not after. - [ ] Workspace ready: desk, computer login, phone extension, copier code. - [ ] Tell the congregation. A new staff member introduced in worship and the newsletter starts known instead of mysterious. ### Day one - [ ] Welcome by the pastor — not handed off cold to whoever's in the office. - [ ] Building tour: exits, breakers, thermostat, supply closets, where the Christmas decorations hide, which door sticks. - [ ] Keys/codes handed over; key log signed. - [ ] Personnel policy and job description reviewed together; both acknowledged in writing (a dated signature on a copy is enough). - [ ] Remaining employment paperwork completed and filed. - [ ] The introductions map (below) — day one includes meeting or at least emailing the SPRC chair. ### First week - [ ] Walk the weekly rhythm together once: bulletin deadline, when the pastor is unreachable, how facility requests come in, what Sunday morning needs. - [ ] All accounts live and tested — email sending, calendar access, giving or management software as the role requires; each one in the registry. - [ ] Safe Gatherings progress checked. - [ ] A standing check-in on the calendar with their supervisor — 15 minutes weekly beats an open door nobody walks through. ### First 90 days - [ ] 30-day conversation with supervisor: what's unclear, what's missing, what surprised them. Adjust the job description if reality already disagrees with it. - [ ] Safe Gatherings certification confirmed complete; expiration date recorded wherever you track certifications. - [ ] 90-day review with the supervisor and an SPRC representative — against the job description, in writing, no surprises. This also sets the pattern for the annual evaluation (¶258.2g.5). - [ ] Checklist owner closes this list out and files it. That file is the start of the personnel record. ## Who does what | Role | Owns | |------|------| | Pastor | Welcome, expectations, weekly-rhythm walk-through | | Checklist owner (usually office admin) | The list itself — every box, chased to done | | SPRC chair | Job description, policy acknowledgment, 90-day review (¶258.2g) | | Treasurer/bookkeeper | Payroll, employment paperwork filing | One person can wear three of these hats in a small church. The hats still exist. ## Variations - **Volunteers in key roles** (nursery coordinator, counters, youth helpers): skip payroll; keep the job description (one page), Safe Gatherings, the key log, the registry entry, and the introductions. Certification tracking matters *more* for volunteers — there are more of them and nobody's watching expiration dates. - **Part-time and shared staff**: the whole list applies; the failure mode is assuming someone at 10 hours/week will "pick things up." They have fewer hours to pick anything up — the checklist is how they survive. - **Single-board churches**: replace "SPRC chair" with whoever holds the staff-relations function on your board; the closed-session and confidentiality rules still apply to those conversations (see the governance-model pages). - **A new pastor** is a different, bigger workflow — appointments, parsonage, handoff of accounts and records. See the pastoral-transition checklists. ## Elsewhere - **IRS — employer forms and first-hire requirements** — the official source for federal employment paperwork; don't take a summary's word for it, including ours. (irs.gov) - **U.S. Department of Labor — FLSA topics** — for the exempt/non-exempt question you should ask about any salaried role. (dol.gov) - **Safe Gatherings** — the abuse-prevention certification program many UMC conferences require; application, training, and background check in one flow. (safegatherings.com) - **GCFA / UMC Support** — legal and HR resources for local churches, including employment topics. (gcfa.org) - **Your payroll provider's new-hire checklist** — Gusto, QuickBooks, and the rest each publish one; it complements this list on the tax-and-forms side. --- **This is a starting point, not legal advice.** Employment law varies by state, and your annual conference may have policies that go beyond the Discipline. Before you rely on anything here for a hiring, firing, or compensation decision, run it past your conference office or chancellor. Paragraph references are to the 2020/2024 Book of Discipline. This document paraphrases; for the binding text, see the Discipline itself. From Itineracy Commons — https://itineracy.app/commons/workflows/staff-onboarding/ Licensed CC BY 4.0. Adapt it freely; keep the attribution. Last updated 2026-07-22.