Calling on corporate chaplains
Calling on corporate chaplains
Seeing employees through tough times beneficial to business in long run
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Janet Jones Kendall Contributing Writer
In the past year, as chairman of Flag Bank, Joe Evans has had several employees battle cancer and also lost two employees in the last six months.
Though he wants to personally support each of his employees, the bank's surge in growth -- to 380 employees, 17 full-service branches and a 105 percent increase in total assets from 2004 to 2005 (to $1.7 billion) -- limits Evans' ability to interact with employees on a personal basis.
That's why he decided to bring in some help from the outside, or above, as the case may be.
Earlier this summer, he entered a contract agreement with the Care and Counseling Center of Georgia for corporate chaplain services for Flag Bank.
The bank now has two chaplains who are present 10 hours a week in the bank's various locations.
Since the program was announced, Evans said he has received only positive feedback from his employees.
Though it's too early in the program for statistics on how many employees have used the services, Evans is convinced the program will be beneficial to the individuals who use it, as well as to the company as a whole.
"I've found that the energy that a business expends being supportive of an employee in a personally traumatic experience pays huge dividends just in the morale and the positive effect that that has on the employee," Evans said. "People who have effective outlets for stress are more productive workers. I think it's one of those sets of circumstances where doing something that is the right and good thing to do also makes good business sense."
Evans isn't the only business manager to adopt the use of corporate chaplains.
Ed Salter, senior vice president of Chaplains Associates Inc., an Atlanta-based nonprofit established in the early 1990s to provide ministry to business and industry, said the hiring of corporate chaplains is a growing trend nationwide as chairpersons and CEOs are recognizing that employees don't check their personal problems at the office door.
"Enhancements that you can do for your company, like offering counseling or spiritual help, make a better employee. It doesn't mean we can solve all the problems. It just means we can step in the gap," Salter said.
A former corporate chaplain for Allied Holdings Inc. from 1995 to 2005, Salter realizes some employees may have reservations about such a program.
"There's always suspicion, people wondering if management has put somebody out there to spy on them and report back," he said.
Although Salter was a paid employee of Allied Holdings, some chaplaincy services, like those offered by Chaplains Associates and Care and Counseling Center, are provided on a contract basis, something that helps alleviate those employee suspicions.
"We are not employees of the company and don't receive benefits from the company," Salter said. "We bill the company, the company pays us, and we pay our chaplains so the chaplain is an outsider going in."
Chaplains are contracted on an hourly basis based on the size of the company and the number of employees.
Corporate chaplaincy fees, Salter said, vary from client to client.
Evans said Flag Bank pays approximately $24,000 annually for the services.
Chaplains Associates and similar organizations require that their chaplains have seminary training, clinical pastoral education and be certified in a crisis area, such as workplace violence, terrorism or FEMA. Also, all chaplains are required to be ordained ministers.
"You have to understand chaplaincy," Salter said. "It's a ministry of presence and from that presence you build relationships and from those relationships, you build ministry. You're not a white-collar or blue-collar chaplain; you're the chaplain for the whole company. One of the values is everyone in the program can benefit from it."
That's certainly what Jim Miller, chairman of Fidelity Bank, found to be true.
Although Fidelity entered a corporate chaplaincy contract with Chaplains Associates 11 years ago, the number of his employees calling for services doubled in the past year.
A total of 110 of the bank's 380 employees paged the service in the last six months, a figure that does not include the number of employees who simply talk with the chaplain while he is in the office on a weekly basis.
"That figure is pretty dramatic," Miller said. "I don't know if that's a sign of the times or what. We've had a lot of family member deaths and some traumatic things to deal with. There's always something and any time we can lift up anybody, it's obviously good for all of us."
Fidelity Bank's total assets as of June 30 were $1.49 billion compared with $1.35 billion in June 2005, a $142 million or 10.6 percent increase. The bank has 21 branches.
Though corporate chaplaincy may be becoming more and more popular, it is simply a "natural evolution" of services that once existed primarily for hospitals, hospices and prison systems, said Chuck Mendenhall, executive director of the Care and Counseling Center, which provides both chaplaincy services and pastoral counseling.
"Back 50 years ago, chaplaincy was a new thing that developed out of what was taking place in areas of social work, psychology, theology and religious and spiritual development," Mendenhall said. "Now corporations and businesses have started looking at themselves as not just corporate structures but as communities of people. It makes the employees feel like they are cared about and valued as a person outside of their contributions to the office."
Mendenhall recognizes there may be some concern about adding a spiritual dimension to the workplace but asserts that there is no goal on the part of his organization to convert employees to any religion.
"If you're dealing with certified chaplains, that's not going to happen. Chaplains are not just for particular people with particular kinds of values. They are there to serve everyone in the place where they are. You're there to enhance them in their journey rather than to bring in a prescribed spiritual journey," Mendenhall said. "I think there are some people that do the latter but those kinds of things don't work well in a corporate setting, particularly not in Atlanta where we have people from so many different backgrounds and with so many different ideas."
Both Miller and Evans admit they were sensitive to the possible perception about their businesses partnering with organizations that could be perceived as being evangelical.
"That was one of my first reservations originally," Miller said. "Although I'm a Christian, I didn't want it to seem like we were pushing Christianity on anyone who didn't want it. That has never been an issue."
Salter said once a manager has made the decision to implement corporate chaplaincy, he or she will not regret it.
"It's valued for the first time when it's needed the first time," Salter said. "There may be a lot of questions about chaplaincy but when the first crisis, the first death, the first need arises, that's what sells the program. That's what makes it worthwhile and people realize it's a good investment."
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