8/5/26 - 2158: A Biblical Guide to People-Centered HR

Jim: This is iWork4Him

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: HR, the HR department. Someone from human resources is on the phone and wants to meet. Every one of those statements brings fear into people's lives. HR isn't an acronym that breeds trust, and it certainly isn't an acronym that we associate with a great place to incorporate my faith.

Jim: Brett Billups would disagree, and loudly, too. Let's be honest. Why do we struggle to believe HR is a great place to incorporate our faith? Because we operate with the world's systems in our minds. The world's systems have lost their minds. God created people. HR is all about people, or it's supposed to be.

Jim: So if God created people and HR is all about people, then it should be natural to incorporate all that God said to be used to help the people that HR is designed to help. With all that said, let's dig in with Brett Billups, who wrote the excellent book and runs an excellent organization all by the same name, Biblical HR. Brett Billups, welcome to iWork4Him.

Brett Billups: Thank you, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much.

Jim: I got through that intro. That was a rough one, but it just... when people hear the word HR, they just go, "Ugh, HR?" Really? Everybody wants to, you know, it's right next to the word purgatory and taxes, I think. (chuckling)

Jim: All right. Before we get started talking about Biblical HR, please share with us, as we do with every first-time guest on our show, how did you become a Jesus follower?

Brett Billups: I grew up - I'm gonna give you a 30,000-foot view. I grew up on a 2,000 acre farm and ranch in the middle of Texas and went to church every Sunday, every Wednesday night, and walked down that aisle at 12 years old, like you were supposed to, and got baptized with my other two brothers.

Brett Billups: And then I just lived my life the way I wanted to, 'cause I thought I had checked a box and I was now saved. And after I left high school and college, I realized that I was living my life on my terms. And eventually, I got married, and then I got really sick. I was in the hospital about 10 days, and this was about 10 years after my wife and I got married. I was in the hospital about 10 days. My liver was shutting down. They took out my gallbladder, and I realized I needed to get serious about my faith.

Brett Billups: And at the time, my wife was reading Henry Blackaby's book Experiencing God, and she realized that faith in Christ was in a relationship with Him. And that's when I started realizing that I didn't have a relationship with Him. So I started, we started going to church more, and I started singing in the choir, and I started attending Bible studies, and we started homeschooling our kids. That's not for everybody, but it, that's what God taught us to, to be a godly husband and a wife and father and mother.

Brett Billups: And I realized that I grew up in a rules-following type of religion, did not have a relationship, but now I do. And that's my story.

Jim: Love it. Love, love it.

Martha: And that's such an amazing story in the sense that, there's probably a lot of listeners that they may still be in the rule-following stage even, and to realize that there's so much more is so powerful. So in the Bible then, as you started digging into your relationship more, somewhere along the line you figured out that the Bible and HR really are in- intermingled. Is that correct?

Brett Billups: Yeah, I did.

Martha: Jim's holding up your book.

Jim: Biblical HR. I hope so 'cause that's the title.

Brett Billups: That's the title. About 10 or 15 years ago, I was really, as I started growing spiritually and I was working for a very public organization, and I started struggling with how to align my faith with my work, especially in a corporate environment. And I could find... I would leave church on Sunday morning having listened to a wonderful sermon, a wonderful worship, and then just dread going back into the workplace the next day because of all the things I had to deal with.

Brett Billups: And so I started trying to find resources that would help me deal with these Monday morning issues, because I couldn't connect the dots between Sunday morning and Monday morning. And I could find a lot of high level things that, faith at work, theology of work kinda resources, but nothing that would really help me in the day-to-day trenches of what I was dealing with and what I was counseling others to deal with.

Brett Billups: And so I just started as I was dealing with a difficult boss, I was trying to counsel people how to deal with a difficult employee or do a performance review or how to interview or all of those day-to-day issues. I just started studying and looking at scripture on how to do those things from a biblical standpoint And that's when I started writing for my own edification. How do I need to counsel others on how to do this? And I was encouraged to put those into book form. And I said, "Ah, maybe when I'll retire or maybe in 20 years or so."

Brett Billups: But good friend of mine who used to be the CHRO for Michaels, strong believer, he said, "Nah, you need to get that out now 'cause it can help people." And so I did. And hopefully it's a blessing to people on just how to, some kind of map or guideline on how to deal with these complex everyday workplace issues. But they aren't, because we're designed and created to operate by biblical principles. We just are. And where better? That's the best employee manual you can have, is scripture.

Martha: Yeah.

Jim: And we've heard that many times as people looked at, hey, I didn't realize the Bible had so much to talk about business, or the Bible had so much to talk about marriage, or the Bible had so much to talk about money.

Jim: You found out the Bible had a lot to talk about how do you deal with people. So where do you get the biggest pushback on this idea, the idea that it's possible to have a biblically centered approach to human resources?

Brett Billups: What's funny is you get the biggest pushback when people find out it's from the Bible. You don't get pushback when you apply the principles because they work, they're right, they are God-honoring, they are people-honoring, and people appreciate. They're honest. They're trustworthy. Those biblical principles are that way. And but when people find out where are you getting that?

Brett Billups: And it says from the Bible. Oh that's where you get the biggest pushback. So it's not a question of, of do the principles work? We know they do. But it's the idea that there is an outside authority that gives some kind of reason and guidelines to how we can treat each other.

Jim: I love that. And we're gonna dig a lot deeper with Brett into his book, Biblical HR. But just a message here from SaferNet, one of our major sponsors of iWork4Him. You wouldn't leave your front door unlocked in a busy city, so why would you leave your computers, your phones, and tablets unprotected online?

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Jim: Brett, your book reads like a reference manual for handling HR issues from the leadership level down to the hiring process. How'd you figure all this stuff out?

Brett Billups: Oh, you see this gray hair?

Jim: Not really.

Brett Billups: That's how I figured it out.

Jim: Looks pretty good to me. (laughter)

Brett Billups: As we talked about before, is that as I grew spiritually and as I dealt with these issues on a, a day-to-day basis, it's just naturally flows together. What God taught me is that biblical wisdom, it works regardless of the situation or the circumstances. So as I dealt with these situations, okay, what is my spiritual side telling me from a discernment aspect? And then what is my experience telling me to do? So it's a discernment plus a practical application of the experience that really, okay, that's the way I need to handle this, is what works for me.

Jim: Okay. So give me, give us an example - here's the way Brett used to do it, and then Brett studies his Bible, and here's the way Brett does something now. Give us an example of fail and then pass.

Brett Billups: I'll have to give you my biggest regret. I used to work for a very large public organization, Kraft Foods, and at their largest pizza manufacturing plant. And had about 800 people. And the, with the defective pizzas, they would take them and throw them in a freezer bunker in the break room so people could take them out and eat them for lunch. But the policy was is that you couldn't just take a bag of those home for your own food because that was considered stealing.

Brett Billups: So I got a report of someone who was taking bags of these home, and so I looked it up on video, and sure enough, I saw this guy carrying two grocery bags of pizza out of the facility. And it was against policy, and it was considered theft, so I brought him in and I terminated him. And he begged me to reconsider because this guy had, he had a stroke a few years before, and this job was a blessing to him.

Brett Billups: And he showed up every day, good worker. And he said, "I didn't know that was against policy." But I held firm. And his family even called and begged me to reconsider, and no, I held firm. Where if I had just shown grace and mercy, we could have kept a good employee- in spite of my pride. Because I didn't wanna be seen as weak in the eyes of these other employees, that this guy's stealing, you need to, he needs to be terminated.

Brett Billups: And they didn't like him because they thought he was slow. They thought he was not a good employee, but he was. And so my biggest regret is that I didn't show grace and mercy at that point, and we could have retained a good employee.

Jim: Did you ever get a chance to go back and apologize to the guy?

Brett Billups: No, I have not. He's up in Wisconsin now. I don't even remember his full name, but it's Bob Kennedy. I remember his name. I remember his face, but ... that's my biggest regret.

Martha: There are things like that where we sometimes get the lesson the hard way. I'd love to hear a couple more examples, one in the area of interviews. How does an interview look different when it is done from a biblical perspective in HR?

Brett Billups: Sure. One of my favorite passages of scripture is 1 Samuel 16:7, where the Lord tells Samuel to go look for a new king. And he tells Samuel, "Don't look on the outward appearance. The Lord doesn't see as man sees. The Lord looks on the heart." So as you interview individuals, there's... The technical qualifications are important, absolutely. So you screen for the technical qualifications and experience, but you hire the heart.

Brett Billups: So as you interview individuals, okay, how do I do that? How do you get to the heart? So One of the most practical things that I can - there's two standard questions that I ask, and I'll give you a practical thing as well. So I ask, "Okay, so what are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not working?" That gives me a really good idea about where their heart is.

Brett Billups: Where do they spend their free time? Do they volunteer at a local hospital? Do they go salsa dancing on the weekend or what? That tells me where they spend their free time. And and then I also ask them, "Okay, what are your hot buttons? What do you... what gets an immediate emotional reaction out of you- ... whether it's positive or negative?" And that, that tells me what their emotional kind of buttons are.

Brett Billups: But then I ask them I utilize something called the STAR method, which is situation, task, action, result. Tell me about a time where someone asked you to do something unethical. What was it? What did you do and what was the result? That kinda tells you where their heart stands. So there's ways, there's questions that you can ask that you can get to the heart. Now, obviously there's some legal question that you can't ask from a personal standpoint, but there are some that you can.

Brett Billups: And they'll offer up, but believe it or not, when you start asking about people's hobbies, what they like to do, and then you ask further question to that, you would be surprised at how much they open up.

Jim: And what I notice is you didn't say, "Tell me about your experience that applies directly to this position," because you're looking for heart, because somebody with the right heart can be trained to do just about anything. But you're looking for heart so you can match culture. Is that what I'm hearing?

Brett Billups: Yeah, it is. Again, technical expertise is important. That is an entry point because if they don't have the minimum qualifications to do the job, they're not gonna be successful in the role. So you, that's gotta be taken into consideration. So you screen for all of that. All right, can they do the job from a technical and expertise standpoint? Can they do it? Yes. All right, now where's their heart?

Jim: Nice. I love that. So let's go to performance reviews because in the old days, once a year you'd sit down with your boss and there'd be a performance review, and a lot of times there'd be surprises on the performance review. And now today, what I've been told, 'cause I haven't had any employees recently, that employees like daily reviews or even hourly reviews. They wanna know how they're doing all the time. Does our faith really impact the performance review process?

Brett Billups: Absolutely. And I'm gonna attack this from a couple of different angles. So Matthew 7:1 and 2 says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For the judgment you pronounce will be judged, and with the measure you will use, it will be measured to you." So what that means is the yardstick that you're using to measure other people and measure others' performance, you better be careful because that same yardstick is gonna be used to measure your own.

Brett Billups: I've had a lot of bosses and a lot of people in performance reviews would tell individuals that, "You're not meeting my expectations." Okay. But look at the parable of the talents. How are they using the gifts that God has given them? Are they meeting God's expectations for the role? I gotta take myself completely out of it. So I measure to God's expectations and how they are utilizing God's gifts, not meeting my own personal agenda.

Brett Billups: So that's different. That's a different performance measurement and a different performance yardstick, because too many bosses look at it as a personal affront that you're not meeting my expectations. You need to do what I say. No, we are called to meet God's expectations and to honor and glorify God in the workplace, and that's how we need to measure. Are they doing that? Are they honoring God in the workplace? The other thing is that when I first became a CHRO, a chief human resources officer for a large organization, I was having biweekly meetings with all of the HR staff.

Brett Billups: And after a few months, I realized we weren't getting anything done. And I was getting feedback from my senior staff that, "Brett, these are just a waste of time. People are-- They're multitasking. They're not engaged. They're..." And so I just scrapped them. I scrapped all of them, and then I started having weekly one-on-ones with all of my direct reports.

Brett Billups: And that changed everything because then they became engaged. And it was a beating every Friday because every half an hour. But we made so much progress, both professionally and personally. Because if you do a, if you do one-on-ones effectively, it's discipleship. So you're bringing discipleship into the workplace when you're giving feedback, when you're giving these performance reviews, and when you're doing these one-on-ones.

Brett Billups: You're discipling your employees. It's not just holding them accountable. So it's not just giving them just giving them feedback on how they're doing in their job. Okay, but how can I help you do your job better? And what are you dealing with per... and especially on Fridays, I could ask them, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend?"

Brett Billups: "Oh, my dad's, it's my dad's 70th birthday. We're going out." "Oh, that's great." And so I, every week I would have a list of things that we need to talk about and then I can come back and ask, "Hey, how was your dad's 70th birthday?" It's discipleship.

Martha: Get to really know the people so that you know if things are changing in their lives and how to adjust in managing them and befriending them.

Martha: Okay, so we've talked about hiring, performance reviews. What about firing or freeing someone's future? What does that, is there a way to do that with a biblical process?

Brett Billups: Yeah, Christ held people accountable. A lotta times that's the biggest, I think, not hurdle, but concern about believers in the workplace. They don't wanna be seen as harsh. They don't wanna be seen as critical. They don't wanna be seen as unloving or impatient or unkind. But Christ held people accountable, but He did it differently to different people.

Brett Billups: So if you look at the woman at the well, He confronted her sin, but He did so lovingly- and kindly and pointed her to Him. But with the Pharisees, it's a completely different story. He had to hit them between the eyes with a two-by-four because of their hypocrisy.

Martha: Yeah.

Brett Billups: And so how you confront that performance and pointing people to godly behavior, again, not just meeting my expectations, but pointing them to godly behavior. And sometimes a termination is the most godly thing you can do for an individual because there is a... Sometimes that, that forced humility is the one thing that will point them to look to Christ.

Brett Billups: Now, you do it in a, a godly way. Number one, you make sure that you're doing your part, that you've communicated your expectations effectively and the organization's expectations effectively, and you've given them all the tools and resources, and you tell them where, "Okay, here's what you're doing well. Here's where you're not doing well." And if they choose to either not perform or if they don't have the ability or capacity to perform, then you have to make some hard decisions at that point.

Jim: But isn't it true, though, if you manage somebody well, you're really investing in them, and they still continue to struggle- I have found that if you manage people, they will manage themselves out the door because they- ... they know, hey usually when you have to fire somebody, it's a failure of management because normally if you hold them accountable, they're gonna remove themselves from an uncomfortable situation if they feel like they're not meeting expectations.

Jim: Maybe you'd have to fire somebody occasionally, but it just seems to me like when I see people having to fire people, it's because the manager failed to do the management job. Agree or disagree?

Brett Billups: I would agree somewhat in a lotta ways. And I think there are a lotta people that will manage themselves out of a job and choose, and self-select themselves out of a job. But there are individuals who will just out of a sense of rebellion continue to not do what you want them to do, and then there is that time where you have to continue- you have to tell them, " okay, you do this again, you're gonna get terminated."

Jim: No, we just say, " we're gonna free your future. We're gonna free your future." (chuckles) 'Cause that's really what it is. 'Cause a lotta times, as you said, when you let somebody go, a lotta times you're doing them a big favor.

Martha: You know- i'm thinking about the fact that, somebody that maybe is a manager or maybe is responsible for HR, that they, if they have not been using this biblical HR approach and they start doing it, if they hire with that intention, if they're doing weekly one-on-ones and having those performance reviews, then this third and final, the firing, is it takes on a whole different element than if you weren't doing it from the biblical HR perspective.

Martha: But yet, like you said, there are times where it, there's just something that happens. But having, knowing the person having a relationship with them can change everything, even in their firing, because you can help launch them for that next best thing.

Martha: So I just wanna take a moment here to remind our listeners, don't forget about our summer picnic initiative. We're encouraging you to have a block party, a potluck, whatever you wanna call it. Send us a picture at Jim's email, which is jim@iworkforhim.com. That will be in the show notes. And for in- more inspiration, you can get on our website. We have a special link that we're gonna put in the show notes for you as well that will give you some extra inspiration of maybe some things you can do at your party to really get to know and love your neighbors.

Martha: Remember, one special winner will be selected at the end of the summer for a special prize. We can't wait to tell you more about that.

Jim: Yeah, we can't wait, 'cause that's how we're gonna change our country. Have a neighborhood picnic- loving your neighbors. What an idea. I heard that somewhere. All right, Brett-

Martha: It's biblical. (laughter)

Jim: Oh, that's what it was. It's that Bible. Says something about that.

Jim: Brett, you deal with very difficult topics in your book, Biblical HR, which I'm holding up here if you're watching on YouTube, or Rumble. Forgot that it's from Rumble as well. That's right. You deal with topics like sexual harassment, inappropriate speech, unethical behavior. The world would say, "Whatever you do, don't push your religion on me. That's just the way business is conducted." What's your response?

Brett Billups: Then don't push your religion on other people. Just do what the Bible says. We are called to, to live out our faith first. And then as you live out your faith according to biblical principles, that, that could open the door up to bring people into a gospel conversation.

Brett Billups: But quite frankly, it's being hypocritical. If you don't live it out, then you're a hypocrite and nobody's gonna listen to your religion anyway. So live it out. And treat people according to biblical principles. That's the best witness you can do. You're not pushing religion on anybody. You're pushing godly principles in your own life out.

Martha: Yeah.

Brett Billups: So you're not pushing religion.

Jim: It's kind of a trick question, but I like the way you answered it because it, it's, we're not. Jesus, the religious people hated Jesus, so they're the ones that killed him. We are trying to introduce people to the way Jesus treated people, which, you know he came to free people, to set them free, to set the captives free. And dealing with issues like sexual harassment and inappropriate speech and unethical behavior really starts to treat people like the children of God, created in the image of God they are.

Brett Billups: Yeah.

Jim: But it's difficult because the world doesn't support that. The world, even the organized church, tends to push some of those things off to the side because they're uncomfortable.

Martha: Yeah. It's good stuff to think about, and I love the fact that it is set up as a resource for people to use.

Jim: Yeah. It's a how-to.

Martha: So Brett, how can you help our listeners to incorporate the biblical approach to HR, whether they're in a for-profit business, a nonprofit business, a ministry, a church, whatever that might be, how can you help them with one thing maybe to help them incorporate?

Brett Billups: I can help if they're, if they're dealing with a complex issue, complex situations, I can train them on how to deal with each of those topics from a biblical standpoint. Here's the biblical principle. Here's what you do before, during, and after this situation. But it's broader than that as well.

Brett Billups: When I was with a large construction company in the CHRO, I put together an HR strategy model, and there's seven steps on how to put an HR strategy together, just incorporating all of the HR function into one cohesive type of plan according and model those all after biblical principles.

Brett Billups: So it's two things. It's taking your faith off the wall and putting it into your day-to-day practice. A lot of times we just have our faith as a mission statement on the wall or as in the corporate policy manual. We need to bring it out of that and bring it back into how we deal with individuals on a one-to-one daily basis.

Jim: All right, so when you, do this, last question. When somebody implements the biblical HR model to HR in their organization, whatever size it is, small, medium, large, wicked small or wicked big, what's the impact on culture?

Brett Billups: I will tell you this, that the latest Gallup survey, you may be aware of this, latest Gallup survey indicated that employee engagement was at its lowest point in 10 years, and the reason for that is that a lack of managerial engagement.

Brett Billups: So if you just bring the concept of biblical principles and how you treat people and discipleship into the workplace, it improves retention, it improves employee engagement, it improves productivity. It is a, we know intuitively that it just it improves the health of your organization across the board.

Brett Billups: So if it's, because again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, and I preach this everywhere I go. We were designed and created to operate by biblical principles. We just, and they work. They are the best way to run your business. So why don't we do it?

Jim: You can check out Brent online at biblicalhr.com. Brent has been gracious enough to give us an extra copy of his book. If you wanna email me... Actually, here's what I want you to do. I want you to subscribe to our channel on YouTube. That's iWork4Him on YouTube. iWork, the number 4 Him on YouTube. Subscribe and then pop me an email, jim@iwork4him.com. I know it's two steps, but you get a free book, Biblical HR.

Jim: If you're in the HR department, you're running a business, you're running an organization, this is gonna change the way you look at how you treat people within your organization. Biblical HR, compliments of Brett Billups. Thanks so much, Brett, for being on the show today. I know we just barely scratched the surface but we're super grateful for the time you've given us today.

Brett Billups: Thank you. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

Jim: This podcast runs on the support of people who believe in conversations like this one we had with Brett Billups, and you can help reach more people for five bucks a month. That's one cup of coffee. It's actually less than a cup of coffee. Visit iwork4him.com/donate, and we'll put the link in the show notes as well.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.