in General Funeral Industry Discussion by connectingdirectors, 07-29-10 in General Funeral Industry Discussion by pking, 06-16-10 in Business Exchange Feature Articles Discussion by Andy Werner, 04-13-10
From the consumers’ perspective, most funeral homes are pretty much all the same. All funeral homes offer burial, cremation and pre-planning services, they carry an inventory of caskets, vaults and urns, and they offer similar forms of personalization. Even facilities tend to be very similar within a community. So at the most fundamental level, the greatest difference between funeral homes are the individuals that work there. Market research consistently reports that the second most often volunteered reason given by consumers for preferring a funeral home is knowing or liking someone on the staff.
In recent years mortuary school classes have become increasingly divergent,
• Some students are right out of high school while others have graduate degrees.
• Some students have never worked in a funeral home while others have spent their entire lives working in funeral homes.
• Some students are in their second career while others have never held a full time job.
Because the mortuary students have such divergent backgrounds, some students are better prepared for work in a funeral home than others. The best funeral directors, whether recent graduates or experienced funeral directors, often migrate to larger funeral businesses for better benefits, regular hours and other forms of compensation.
Smaller volume funeral businesses are often faced with limited choices when hiring funeral directors. This factor contributes to lower pay for these individuals, which contributes to many recent mortuary school graduates leaving the profession early in their career.
Because qualified individuals serving as funeral directors is fundamental to the health and prosperity of the funeral profession, the Funeral Service Foundation commissioned a comprehensive research study to investigate the Recruitment and Retention in the death care profession. The objective of this comprehensive study is to learn funeral directors’ attitudes toward work and career, how people are recruited into the profession and the factors that contribute to their success in the profession. Also, how the recruitment process can be improved to attract more and better-educated students to mortuary schools.
The FSF Board of Directors believes that smaller volume, independent funeral firms, which represent the foundation of funeral service, will benefit the most from attracting more qualified individuals into mortuary schools. Accomplishing this is a matter of elevating the profession’s efforts to attract people.
Information for this study was collected from:
• Working Funeral Directors
• Funeral Home Owners and Managers
• Mortuary School Administrators
• Mortuary School Students
• Adults age 18 – 29, including college students and graduates
The study was conducted from December 2007 through June 2009.
In addition to the Recruitment and Retention study, the FSF also funded a study by Dr. Thomas Shaw, a licensed funeral director with practical work experience and an instructor in the Southern Illinois University Mortuary program. The purpose of Dr. Shaw’s project was to study personality and workplace characteristics that would contribute to the development of a personality matrix to be used in identifying individuals that will derive intrinsic rewards from helping families through the loss of a loved one.
The Recruitment and Retention study also considered the results of a study conducted by the New York Funeral Directors Association to determine the work satisfaction and retention of licensed funeral directors.
The Foundation wants to share the research findings with the Death Care Profession.
The Funeral Service Foundation Board of Directors believes the research findings must be promulgated to the profession for the research project to be a success. This will be accomplished through a series of articles published in the death care industry publications. The articles will be compiled into a book that will summarize the research study procedures; present the research findings relative to the personality types most likely to find funeral director work rewarding and the best places to find these individuals. The book will include interviewing and selection tools to assist the interviewer and the applicant in identifying the applicant’s personality traits that would contribute to their long-term success and satisfaction with a career in funeral service. The interview tool will include the questions derived from Dr. Shaw’s study.
In addition to the published articles and book, the Funeral Service Foundation is making the findings available as a program for conventions and conferences. The Funeral Service
Foundation Board of Directors based upon a competitive request for proposals selected Glenn Gould. Glenn will author the articles and book, and is available to make presentations at state and national association conventions and conferences.
The Funeral Service Foundation (FSF) is a national public grant making organization with a mission to raise awareness of the important work of the funeral profession, and to provide resources for:
Career and professional development
The support of funeral service and allied professions
Public awareness and education
The FSF works on behalf of all aspects of death care, including independent and corporate funeral service, the vendor community and to the lives of the individual families served by the profession.
Funeral Service Foundation grants are available to those within the death care industry, as well as organizations that work in concert with the goals of funeral service, primarily in the areas of grief and bereavement support.
For more information on the FSF “Recruitment and Retention” research project contact the Executive Director of the Funeral Service Foundation, Celi Clark Haga, at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or telephone 877-402-5900.
