“It’s been an immense challenge to start in a season like that, but Leadr has made it much easier for us and has been such an incredible tool for our staff.”
— Travis Sneed - Executive Pastor, Covenant Church
Leadr helped Covenant Church streamline their onboarding process and transform their meetings to maximize connection, development and collaboration. As a result, Covenant Church is now seeing feedback that meetings accomplish clear goals and encourage effective feedback and efficient collaboration. They’ve also found ways to improve and personalize staff development for each team member, opening up space for one-on-one feedback and growth.
Navigating a shift to virtual revealed a need for stronger connection.
Located in Greenville, North Carolina, Covenant Church is a multisite church with 2,000 regular attendees at their central campus and a second campus located 30 minutes away. With a staff of 50 in various places all over different buildings on their sprawling campus, distance proved to be an obstacle to cohesive and effective meetings and limited collaboration. This challenge was especially magnified by remote work during COVID-19.
Their leadership team knew that they needed to improve both the quality and consistency of their meetings. They found that their current meetings were not productive or organized: with a team spread out all over their campus, they remember feeling “very disjointed.”
Without organization for meetings, team members found themselves not on the same page, and there wasn’t a clear way to follow up with action steps or progress.
Covenant Church’s team needed a tool that would make meetings a catalyst for progress on goals by bringing their team together and helping them coordinate and collaborate with a common focus.
Regardless of location, people are at the heart of Covenant Church’s work.
Another significant challenge Covenant was navigating was the natural ebb and flow of staff changes. As many people experienced opportunities last year to explore new adventures, others joined Covenant Church’s team. They needed a way to welcome new team members and introduce them to a network of systems and colleagues with various office setups.
In addition to onboarding, they also saw a need for individual staff development. They desired a structure for providing accountability and feedback that would lead to both personal and professional development.
With different ideas in mind for building up staff and equipping them with various resources like videos, classes, podcasts or books, they needed a flexible platform that would allow a supervisor to assign and guide learning and development for staff, with a way to review progress together.
“I didn’t want to send it out in a link in an email and wonder if they’re even watching it or reading it. And so that’s where learning was a really valuable tool for us. The flexibility of learning and as a tool has been beneficial for me in investing in our staff and helping them to develop.”
— Travis Sneed - Executive Pastor, Covenant Church
Leadr provides a software tool that brought new life to Covenant’s fragmented staff.
With a range of features and tools within Leadr’s software, Covenant Church brought their whole team to the same page for meetings. A key component of their transformed meetings was introducing a central agenda. With that valuable tool, each team member was well informed of what would be addressed and discussed at the meeting, allowing them time to prepare, encouraging them to participate and share thoughtful insight and feedback, or allowing them to add to the agenda themselves.
Opening up the agenda team wide brought a new level of intentionality to their meetings. The time and location were clear. Team members felt more confident scheduling meetings, inviting others into conversations, and clarifying which team members were needed for different goals and projects.
And thanks to a central agenda, each team member had a tangible record of the meeting directly after the end of the meeting. This immediate and critical feedback is an ideal starting place for having follow-up conversations, completing action steps, and knowing what was ahead for the next meeting. Team members can visualize progress towards goals and work together effectively to meet them.
“When I was considering other platforms, the best thing that Leadr had going for it - and still does - is that it’s all-encompassing. It all happens under one umbrella. And I thought that it was sensational.”
— Travis Sneed - Executive Pastor, Covenant Church
Connected and cohesive conversations prove to be the key to growth.
Leadr’s software offers Covenant’s team organization and connection, all in one place. Those elements have propelled their team towards growth, not just as a church but also individually.
A new feature that allows teams to conduct annual reviews within the software has elevated Covenant’s efforts to streamline and improve their onboarding and development systems.
They can now have their entire staff conduct reviews through Leadr, connecting the annual evaluation to previous conversations with supervisors or peers around goals and development.
This has transformed the way Covenant’s team sees these necessary yearly meetings.
In the past, an annual review may have arrived with an element of fear due to disconnected conversations and confusing or unclear expectations. Now the conversation is about how each staff member is growing and how they’ve seen themselves progress over time.
One church leader said, “it helps us go farther, faster.”
With Leadr, Covenant Church is equipped to navigate the changing environment of their church, whether that’s virtual or in person. Their team has a clear focus on what they want to accomplish, and Leadr gives them the tools to work together, with the right combination of staff members, to reach any goal they set. And their team, together, is consistently on track seeing how they fit into the big picture goals of Covenant Church.
