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Yep, it’s true. The Church is now making the switch to using large companies to handle church property management.
How many church members will now be out of jobs?
It kinda makes me sad.
They’ve already cut back on their employee list – LDS Social Services took a huge hit not that long ago and now the counselors are stretched way thin.
That’s tough. I’ve had a few friends who have worked for the area, and was good friends growing up with the son of the head property manager in my home stake. I always heard that the Church was one of the best employers. Large efforts have been made in the past to transfer those employees who’s jobs became obsolete, rather than lay them off. I am not a fan of the “Corperation of” the LDS Church, but they are pretty big employers. I wonder, has the Church been financially struggling as of late? Otherwise, it’d feel like they were placing money before the members, acting out of business savy instead of concern for their employees. I wouldn’t put it past them, but I sure hope not.
Not that the Church would ever be financially transparent.
Frankly, it’s a bit of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. People like to complain about the corporate side of the Church, then the Church is criticized by those same people when it eliminates something that is more corporate than religious.
Frankly, it probably is less expensive to hire property management companies than to deal with all of the issues of internal employees – and drawing a clear line between what things it should maintain and what things it should outsource is impossible, especially knowing it will get criticized no matter which decision it makes.
I guess being in the big bad corporate world, this just seems like another day in the office. I don’t look down on the church for making this change, but I do hope the folks in PF are generally transferred to the companies taking on the contract. I just hope that part of the contract is the weekly cleaning of the church buildings.
I heard this yesterday as well. Like the elimination of janitors a few years back, I don’t think it’s a good idea and I don’t think we’ll be better off for it. (And no, I don’t think this has anything to do with the church hurting financially. Will this save money? Probably but that’s just money in the bank.)
Unfortunately we don’t know many details of the reasons behind the decision. I can easily imagine circumstances which would make management by a professional property company perfectly logical. Hopefully they will take care of anyone who is displaced, which I think they would. Agreed Roadrunner. What I have seen with transactions like this in the corporate world that the employees are absorbed into the company that gets the contract and they can have varying contractual requirements (nobody transfered over can be let go in 1 or 2 years). The company surely would want to keep the very competent folks, but there may be some that just are not that great. And sometimes there is a cultural clash. I have found that philosophy of, “Lead, Follow, or get out of the way” is the proper mindset with dealing with mergers and such. If you just grumble about “the good old days of the way it was” people tire of that and it is history. Move on by either 100% joining with the new team or move to a new job.
So it could be that they are “take care of”, but once in the new company they don’t like it. What if they serve alcohol at the company christmas party!!!
😮 😮 😮 😮 😮 😮 Old Timer wrote:Frankly, it probably is less expensive to hire property management companies than to deal with all of the issues of internal employees – and drawing a clear line between what things it should maintain and what things it should outsource is impossible, especially knowing it will get criticized no matter which decision it makes.
Not sure about that. I have seen the long term effects of privatisation here, and it has *not* cut costs in many cases but raised them as the companies charge as much as they can get away with.
Also having worked in outsourced companies, there are issues with regular work, job security, pensions etc.
Old Timer wrote:
Frankly, it’s a bit of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.People like to complain about the corporate side of the Church, then the Church is criticized by those same people when it eliminates something that is more corporate than religious.
Frankly, it probably is less expensive to hire property management companies than to deal with all of the issues of internal employees – and drawing a clear line between what things it should maintain and what things it should outsource is impossible, especially knowing it will get criticized no matter which decision it makes.
I have mixed feelings. My commitment issues have often stemmed from the mixture of temporal and spiritual in the church. It comes across as grandiose and above the earth on Sunday, and then they won’t let you go on a mission because you don’t have any money — while they sit on piles of it. Or the leaders act like captains of commerce rather than spiritual advisers.
It can seem like the church is not what it seems when they have to let temporal concerns eclipse spiritual ones. And the maxim “all things are spiritual” doesn’t wash with me….
I think after the dust settles, church members are better off finding jobs in areas outside the church. Sad the church would let them go, but at least those people, often members, don’t have to reconcile the fact that the larger than life stories we hear at church don’t translate into day-to-day operational matters where money, real estate, repairs, and other business decisions have to be made.
I just hope part of the new deal is the hired company cleans the chapel for us. I don’t like been voluntold anymore.
QuestionAbound wrote:
They’ve already cut back on their employee list – LDS Social Services took a huge hit not that long ago and now the counselors are stretched way thin.
This is the part that bothers me more. It’s been a pet peeve that it’s nearly impossible to get access to services like these — which are closer to the heart of spirituality and family health — than the facilities, in my view. It’s decisions like these that make my own personal decisions regarding the church easier.
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