I came across a couple of news articles in the last couple of days that knock home the fact that you have to know who you are hiring when you hire somebody to work at your facility.  What are your hiring practices??  With the shortage of licensed help, do you hire the first licensee that steps into your facility.  I would suggest that you need to be careful if you do and make sure that you are well insured.

Just in the last couple of days I read an article that pertained to the allegations of a funeral home manager and some of his relatives stealing over $1.3 million from a funeral home owner.  The Associated Press reported that to make matters worse, the funeral home was closed when the alleged perpetrators failed to renew the mortuary license.  You can read about this case here.

A second article that I read about pertained to a funeral home in Michigan that had a funeral director sue for the right to transition from a male to a female while continuing to work at the funeral home.  Recently, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the employee and ruled that she was illegally fired and discriminated against by the funeral home.  You can read about this case here from the Oakland Press.

So, as a funeral home owner, what do you do about these cases?  Cases in which you believed that you had the right people in the positions and something happened that caused an adverse employer/employee relationship.  Trust me, it is not easy to pinpoint when selecting employees, but it is more imperative than ever that you make sure that you have solid information, history, and background information on who you are hiring or you might end up in this situation.

The laws are complex too.  Think about the owner of the funeral home where the employee was transitioning in sexual orientation.  The funeral home owner is trying to get business by making families feel comfortable in his funeral home’s care.  I’m guessing that a transitioning person could make some people uncomfortable around them at times. Hypothetically, business could suffer because of such, but according to the recent appeals court ruling, you could not release the employee – because if you do you could potentially be guilty of discrimination.  There is no doubt about it — it is a tough issue.

In my opinion – employee issues will always arise, but the best way to try to avoid adverse situations is to make sure that the work on the front end, prior to the hire, is done diligently.  In today’s world there is just no getting around the fact that you cannot be lazy when it comes to verifying employment information for potential employees.  Knowing who your employees really are may be the most important thing you do in helping to maximize the value of your funeral home.

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