Is the cavalry on the way in the funeral director staffing crisis?
If you read all of the articles that I do while I’m doing my research you would notice that a great many articles get written on what I’ll call the staffing crisis in funeral homes around the country. And, while not really contradictory, they seem to be on one of three subjects.
Those subjects are 1) Lack of numbers, 2) Recruitment issues/opportunities and, 3) the high number of current mortuary college student enrollment.
One thing that is not touched on enough in the articles are issues such as what licenses should be necessary, what education level should be necessary and the like. With the high numbers of students currently enrolled and the efforts of our industry to recruit second career individuals such as military veterans. . . is help on the way? . . . . . If not what is stopping it or what more could be done?
Funeral industry executive Alan Creedy and funeral director and entrepreneur Danny Jefferson discuss that issue in this short – 7-minute podcast on their show, Two Guys and a Question.
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After listening to this last week, I have thought about what Allen Creedy said that 2 0ut of 3 funeral directors will retire in next 5 years. Just looking at the firm that I work for this is a correct statement. I also thought about how many directors that we have on our staff that are between the age of 35 to 55, not many. If we have staffing problems now wait 10 years. Good luck, I will be retired.
In my nearly fifty years in funeral service, I’ve wondered why our work never tried to mimic the few other 24/7, 365 days a year work scheduling, like truck drivers, pilots, police, EMT/rescue. Continuity is part of the problem, I understand. But these others workers can legally work only so many hours. And ‘waiting to be engaged’ has always been a very gray area in funeral service. The new(er) working-from-home jobs have not helped in our work.