Finding those employees when you need them

February 23, 2022/Business/

We are now two years into this pandemic. I remember late February and March of 2020 very well. In February of that year Angie and I flew home from a couple of weeks in the Hawaiian Islands, and while there were no masks present on our trans-pacific flight, we did take the precaution to “wipe” down our seats and stay within “our space” on that flight out of an abundance of caution.

Then in March I met for what was the last, for quite some time, of my regularly scheduled monthly in-person University of Minnesota board meetings. The President of the United States had just warned about international travel and a topic at the board meeting was about getting “Study Abroad” students home. We also had Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert and University employee, address the board about what to expect in the coming months.

As I mentioned, it’s been two years since then and you have lived this journey just as I have. It’s been a different two years than any other two years of, my over sixty years, of my existence. While we have all been affected, health care workers in America have been battered and on the front lines of service to our country. According to this article, more than 3,600 health care workers died of Covid-19 exposure during the first full year of the pandemic. And from other sources it has been reported that close to 40% of current health care workers are considering leaving that field of work because of the stress that they have come under.

Death care employees, such as funeral directors and embalmers, generally don’t get put in that “Health Care” worker category, and are many times “forgotten heroes”, but have been under tremendous stress as well. I retired from all “active” work in early 2014 and I don’t know how many times I’ve thought about the fact that I’m pretty fortunate that I was not on the front lines of the Covid stampede. I’ve always had a “servant’s heart” to do funeral service work, but I’m just glad that I’m out of the active job portion of my life. . . .I hope my colleagues still working can understand that attitude.

However, I stop in at my old funeral home a lot. I’m amazed and so proud of the work that is being done there by the current group of funeral directors — service and a servant’s heart is very much evident. . . . Covid deaths or not. They have continued to take care of our community through the pandemic with incredible courage, grace, and resolve. I’m so proud of the team and group of young men and women that were by my side for years.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

But, the stress that we read about with health care workers is truly evident in their lives as they go through the duties. In November and December of 2020, when the pandemic took its biggest toll on our community, the group did about 200% of their monthly volume and didn’t miss a beat. . . . satisfying family wishes at a time when defenses were pretty non-existent. . . the vaccines were not available to us until early 2021.

So, it goes without saying, not necessarily with my group of funeral directors, but with funeral directors nationwide, that there are some of the same thoughts as with health care workers. . . .maybe not to the extent of the purported 40% of health care workers, but a percentage of funeral directors and embalmers are thinking of leaving the profession.

Funeral service is already in a situation where we believe that we are short of employees and we face a business future with both inflation in costs and potential lower revenues per case (because of increased direct cremation consumer wishes) in a business environment where wages are being increased just to find employees. For instance, I was shocked the other day when at a Waffle House restaurant I saw help wanted advertising $21 per hour starting pay for waitresses and short order cooks. . . .$21 per hour in a normal 2000 hour work year would equate to a salary of $42,000.

My take is that I believe that funeral service may have to be very creative with our employees in the era we are in. I noticed this recent article in Forbes giving some credence to look to Retirees and Pre-Retirees to help fill the gap. It’s an interesting article that mentions many younger retirees left professions partly because of the stress of the current pandemic. And, while we’ve been led to believe that America’s retirees are flush with savings, this article implies differently. Here’s what the Forbes article says on that subject, “It’s no secret that many pre-retirees and retirees have meager retirement resources, and they might struggle financially during their retirement.”

And, this other quote from the article seems to give the impression that those part-time retirement employees may be out there. Forbes states, “For example, the “2021 Retirement Confidence Survey” from the Employee Benefits Research Institute reports that seven in 10 workers hope to work for pay during retirement, although less than one in three retirees report that they’re actually working.”

The Forbes article is all about being creative. For instance, I always enjoyed making funeral arrangements, but I was not near as comfortable in the prep room. Maybe you could coax a recent funeral service retiree out of total retirement to come in 4 hours Monday through Friday simply to make funeral arrangements and/or pre-arrangements. At that same time, maybe that is 4 hours you could give a younger employee off so that they could stay home and do child-care for those four hours saving costs on that end for them. That younger employee may then be able to make up those day-time hours by working more at night when his/her spouse is home to help with child-care.

This is one of those articles where I have to apologize for not giving answers. But, again like many of my articles, funeral service is so varied there is not a “one-size-fits-all” answer to employment issues. My hope with this article is that I’ve spurred some thoughts in how you may be able to juggle the employment situations to create a more satisfying environment for your employees.

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