Personnel Committees

Purpose and Responsibilities

To ensure accountability and transparency, churches where Reliant-employed pastors serve on the legal/governing board must have a Personnel Committee, acting as independent lay leaders and connected to Reliant HR. They will be entrusted with the annual review and performance management of local pastors, compensation setting for local pastors with Reliant, and any regular HR compliance responsibilities related to those pastors and to act as a reporting mechanism alongside Reliant for any personnel-related issues about them. The goal is to accomplish this in a principled way, with standards that can be met through a variety of church polity and governance systems.

The committee will be authorized by the governing board of the church to manage pastoral annual evaluations, to approve the Reliant-employed pastor's compensation package, and the compensation package of any member of the pastor's family who is employed by Reliant or the church. The approval shall be documented in the minutes of the committee meetings.

The committee shall document its compliance with the requirements described above. Reliant reserves the right to evaluate the committee's makeup to assess their fit to meet these standards. The committee shall contemporaneously document its meeting and decisions and, if applicable, its rationale for establishing any recommendations or decisions.

The pastors will not report to this committee hierarchically; the committee will provide accountability to employment issues. Any recommended actions from the committee (outside of pre delegated authority) would be in the form of a proposal to the church's governing board and/or to Reliant HR for final decisions.

Independent Committee

The committee and those participating in the decision-making process may not have any conflict of interest in the decision, whether direct or indirect. That is, the members in the decision-making process may:

• Not be employed by the church or Reliant
• Not be related to anyone employed by the church or Reliant
• Not be related to other members of the committee
• Not be in the hierarchy or employee management structure of the church or Reliant
• Not be in the hierarchy or employee management structure of another organization or company along with another member of the committee
• Not be a person whose employment or compensation is determined in a manner that involves input or decision-making by the person whose employment or compensation is being addressed
• Not have other personal or financial conflicts of interest. (It is okay to have Reliant donors on your committee.)

Committee Makeup

The committee shall be made up of three to five (3-5) men and women with a minimum of 30% gender diversity, a majority of whom are locally attending members of the church. Churches in the first three (3) years since planting, with less than 50 adult members (non-college students), or requesting an exemption due to other extenuating circumstances may use non-local committee members. Non-local members should be appointed with a preference for members from the planting church or from among former local members. If no amenable committee, in whole or in part, can be put into place, the Reliant Board Personnel Committee will assist with this function.