Last week I wrote an article dealing with the professional staffing shortage in the death care industry.  While there is some question, depending on who you talk to,  as to whether the funeral service staffing shortage is  perceived or real, there is no doubt that the economy keeps humming along in America and Economics 101 tells us that will cause labor shortages. Which industries, however, are the question.

From my standpoint, however, in rural Minnesota, I see professional shortages in not only funeral directors, but doctors, dentists, nurses, veterinarians and more.  There is a real compromise that comes with living in the rural areas of our country that comes with being a professional care giver.  It can almost be said that many times life is not your own when you choose those occupations in these types of towns.  Being on call is a large part of that in virtually all of those professions.

Young professionals in today’s world want to be professional in their work world, but also want to have free time to do what they want to do and enjoy doing.  Over the Christmas holiday, our extended family has six young men and women cousins from ages 17-23.  I asked the question, and they all are either pursuing or will be pursuing college and/or professional degrees, “What interests you more. . . more money or more time off?”

While they brought up some good points – for instance – if single why not put your nose to the grindstone right off the bat and work enough to save some good money.  On the other hand, they talked about when they are young, that is the time to take some time off and have fun — before the responsibilities of  family life overtake them.

So, while the answer was a little bit muddled – and they all had slightly different answers, I just didn’t see any of them wanting to put in 60 hours per week at their job.  There is the conundrum — it is difficult as an employer to get these types of — probably really good employees — with the type of call schedules that have been given to employees in the past.

When I owned and operated my mortuary I was fiercely independent and not afraid to go to work 60 hours per week.  I also had a stay at home wife – which is uncommon these days – who could keep the home fires burning when I was not there.  Of course, I had equity in my firm, and was willing to bring more value to that over time.  What about employees?

One of my veterinarian friends, who has the same problem, just brought six clinics together to handle each other’s calls which puts him or his employees, on call every six nights and every third weekend.  A compromise is that you are sending trusting clients to a clinic they have never been to before at times when they are looking for your advice more than ever.  Not a perfect situation, but having no employees because of the work schedule is not a very good situation either.

Funeral service is starting into a trend of less revenue per service so it is not a time to believe that we can just hire more employees to make working hours better.  If the funeral service world is going to be what it was, especially in the rural areas, this is something that needs to find a solution.  Do we stay fiercely competitive like I was or do we look to our competitors to be our collaborators in the employee world?

[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]