The pros and cons of hiring vs. outsourcing and how to know what's right for your church communications needs.

Should you hire or should you outsource? It’s likely a question you’ve pondered before. When it comes to your communications efforts, what is the right answer for your church? 

Maybe you need to develop a brand new website or you want to put together a compelling outreach video. Perhaps your bulletin needs an overhaul by a graphic designer or you want some fresh, engaging photography to illustrate the life of your church.

Do you have the talents needed for these projects within your communications team, or do you need to outsource the work to professionals skilled in those areas? There are certainly pros and cons to each option. 

Hiring for communications

Pros

  • Proximity: A dedicated communications staff member (part-time or full-time) can be fully integrated into your team's office environment and can understand your church's culture and nuances at a deeper level. This staff member can also develop ongoing relationships with your team and volunteers, which can make navigating communications tasks a little easier. Ideally, they will know how to get questions answered more quickly.
  • Availability: You have an onsite expert who is consistently available for regular meetings and staff/volunteer interaction as well as to lead a team of communications volunteers, thus releasing people to use their God-given talents for ministry.
  • Investment: Your part-time or full-time communications staff members will be solely focused on meeting the needs of your church. Most likely, they will also identify it as their church home and will invest in ministry beyond their staff role, attending, giving and serving in various areas. They will help create/implement plans and will actually get to see the outcome in person.

Cons

  • Singular focus: It's great if your resources allow you to hire a full team, including a communications leader, designer or a writer. However, it can be challenging when you need communications expertise outside of your current team. Outsourcing can give you access to the talents of a range of experts in multiple skill areas instead of hiring individual staff members who have a singular focus. Likely, these experts also work with many different clients, so you benefit from their variety of experiences as well.
  • More challenging to shift staffing plan: Outsourcing can support your church's communications needs and plans today on a short-term or project basis and then flex as needed when your plans or resources change.
  • Financial investment: Each permanent hire you make can require a significant financial investment on the part of your church, especially when you consider what it will cost to provide a full-time salary with benefits for a full-time employee.
  • Long-term commitment: You will invest a high level of resources into the hiring and onboarding of a new employee. Ideally, you hope that both the employee and the church are committed to making it a long-term relationship. However, outsourcing allows you time to explore what you need long term. Do you need to hire, outsource or create a hybrid approach? The flexibility of outsourcing allows you to assess what your church will need on an ongoing basis and then respond accordingly.

So when is hiring the right choice? We work with a number of churches who decide to hire communications personnel to join their staff team. This often creates that much-needed link between staff and lay leaders, pastors and congregation or between the congregation and the community. It also frees current staff members from being overloaded with communications planning and tasks that they don't feel confident doing. Pastors can focus on their calling to teach and shepherd, while others are focusing on things like the church website, social media and the weekly bulletin. 

Remember: hires need to be strategic. Take time to consider the talents and experiences the ideal candidate should have. Churches are often tempted to hire an implementer when they really need a strategic leader, or vice-versa. Move slowly, if needed, to make sure you are placing the right person in the right seat on your team. 

And when is outsourcing the right choice? We have worked with several churches who have outsourced much or all of their communications work during an interim period when they are either trying to hire or determining what they will need for the future. This helps keep their ministry messaging moving forward in a timely manner with excellence while decisions are being made in the background.

Plus, there are some tasks that your communications staff doesn’t have the time and/or the skillset to do well, so outsourcing is a great way to fill those gaps and get excellent work in the process. Sure, we all take photos and videos on our iPhones, but there’s no comparison to the work of a professional photographer or videographer who definitely brings it to the next level. Yes, you can make your own flyer, but should you? Do you understand the latest trends in website design and development? Sometimes a hybrid approach is the best answer – keep most work in-house and outsource projects that require specialized skills or are in areas where there’s not enough work to hire someone full-time. And even when you outsource, remember that someone within the church will still need to be available to manage and invest in that ongoing relationship.

At the end of the day, when it comes to hiring or outsourcing, it's important to make strategic choices based on your church's goals, needs and available resources (time, money and skillsets).