Tag: funeral home employees

Recruiting At Zaxby’s

Written by Alan Creedy on December 11, 2018. Posted in General Topics, The Creedy Commentary. 5 Comments on Recruiting At Zaxby’s

Recruiting at Zaxby’s

The single greatest challenge facing funeral service is not cremation. It is our inability to find and recruit and retain good quality funeral directors. Fully 2/3 of the current licensee labor pool is over 55. Our inability to replace this work force has very nasty consequences. Not only will families be underserved but the pressure on the remaining workers will ultimately exceed the capacity.

What Should we do?

When faced with a dilemma no one is working on it is best to take matters into your own hands. I believe the answer is in our past.

If you know a first – generation funeral director who is in his or her 70’s, chances are they entered the profession through the ambulance service. Younger than that, many of them were engaged in their late teens to do mundane work around the funeral home like mowing lawns and washing cars but the owner bought them a suit and they started helping out on funerals. Many of these recruits grew to love the work and ended up getting licensed. In my opinion, the ones I have met who came in this way represent our best practitioners.

A few weeks ago I was working with a client and we took a break to go down the street and have lunch at Zaxby’s. I am confident that you, dear reader, have eaten in a “fast” food restaurants and the overall experience is…shall we say… underwhelming. This experience was remarkable. The young man who took our order was probably 17 or 18, well groomed and extraordinarily personable. He greeted us by looking us in the eye, he engaged with us, asked what we were doing for the holidays and sincerely thanked us for our order. WOW! He made an unmemorable experience memorable.

When my client and I sat down I asked him what he noticed about the young man and I was surprised to realize he hadn’t really noticed. Sometimes we have our focus so intent on our own challenges we don’t see what’s around us. When I pointed out my observations he realized what I was talking about. When I told him I would have introduced myself and given him my card and asked him to stop by he got up and did it.

So, what should we do? We should do what our grandfathers did. We should be intentional about looking for solutions wherever we can find them. We may not be able to solve the profession’s labor shortage but we can solve our own by recruiting locally. Yes, you will have to kiss a few frogs to find your prince or princess but you will be helping yourself along the way.

On Motivation – Money Is Not The Answer

Written by Alan Creedy on July 15, 2013. Posted in Video Gallery, Leadership, The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video. 1 Comment on On Motivation – Money Is Not The Answer

Did you know that money is not a motivator. It is only a hygiene factor. Paying too little creates dissatisfaction…paying fairly only takes away the bone of contention…paying too much does not create enthusiasm and can often lead to dissatisfaction.

So what really motivates people. It’s simpler than you think and if you are as introspective as I can be at times you will realize you already know it. The trick is to get over your personal trash and execute what, strangely, seems counterintuitive but is really not.

I try to keep the amount of time you need to commit to my posts limited but this 20 minute video is too good to exclude Dan Ariely shares how to really motivate and demotivate people.

Take Aways:

Ignoring contributions is the same as shredding people’s work in their faces
Meaning is more important than efficiency
When people have to make an effort (work harder) at something they actually love their work more

So, go get a cup of coffee, sit back and learn something valuable enough to spend 20 minutes.

Esse Quam Videri

Written by Alan Creedy on February 12, 2013. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, General Topics. 3 Comments on Esse Quam Videri

I have to admit I tense up whenever someone begins using the Ritz Carlton as an example Funeral Service should use to fashion its own customer service profile. Not that we can’t learn some things from the Ritz. We most certainly can! But it is a dangerous recommendation when we fail to “Go Deep” on the pain and effort it took for the Ritz to get to that level of service. Another example of mistaking form for substance.

I have now lived in North Carolina for almost 28 years. Within a year or so of arriving I noticed that the state motto is “Esse Quam Videri” which is latin for:

“To Be Rather Than To Seem”

I can’t find anyone who knows the genesis of that motto but I like it and have adopted it for my own. It’s a good standard and it’s good to have a standard. Especially when you fail to meet it. And that is really the story of the Ritz Carlton.

All too often we see something that works somewhere and we adopt what we see without really understanding the substance behind it. For the past 20 years I have witnessed many main line denominational churches send committees out to study the exploding megachurch movement. All come back with the outer cosmetic trappings. They change the music and often the ambiance but they never get to the deeper essence of what is really causing those churches to grow the way they do.

In the mid 1980’s, on behalf of my clients, I made a case study of the Ritz Carlton. They were then, as they are now, extremely gracious. It was entirely open book. I was introduced to the whole story of blood, sweat and tears or rather the herculean 10 year single-minded effort of Horst Schulz and his merry band of executives as they set about changing the culture of the Ritz. No small effort.

And that is really my point. Adopting “country club manners” was only the visible part. The focus and intentionality of achieving their vision was, by far, the most impressive. You see, it is not enough at the Ritz Carlton to ACT like a lady or a gentleman. You must actually BE a lady or a gentleman. And that is the key to any successful organizational change.

Your DNA must change

My wife and I have become addicts of Masterpiece theater’s “Downton Abbey“. In the presence of the Lords and Ladies the “help” puts on their best face. But downstairs in the servant’s work area they are as dysfunctional as any funeral home staff I have ever met. At the Ritz that would not be tolerated. The turnover rate at the average hotel (luxury or otherwise) is startling high. The Ritz turnover is a fraction of the industry average but it is still about 25%. That is partly because at the Ritz if you can’t BE a lady or gentleman…you simply can’t stay.

Click here for a copy of the Ritz Carlton Values Card

Click here for a copy of the Ritz Carlton Baldridge Award Application

Managers Vs. Leaders: Which Are You?

Written by Alan Creedy on January 24, 2011. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 2 Comments on Managers Vs. Leaders: Which Are You?

As a student of leadership and as a “Benchmark” Assessor for the Center for Creative Leadership, I am well aware of the impact poor leadership has on results. The problem, in my mind, is the historical emphasis on styles more appropriate to factory settings than businesses that actually interface with the public.

The difference between a manager and a leader is significant and that point is often missed. Both are responsible for accomplishing goals but one has a greater responsibility of setting goals than the other. Both are responsible for optimizing performance but one is focused almost entirely on the day to day while the other must balance the day to day with the bigger picture of how to prepare for the future.

The dysfunctionality of the manufacturing style of managing has been widely known for at least two decades. It gets work done but does not optimize performance. As Drucker says so eloquently: It creates “job impoverishment, not job enrichment”. Building a team of high performers is quickly becoming one of the Critical Keys to Success for all businesses but even more so for DeathCare.

I am a “semi fan” of Seth Godin’s. As a rule ranters make me uncomfortable. But I subscribe to his blog because every six weeks or so he coughs up a gem and this link is one. It will take you two minutes so Click here to read it for yourself.

Great Advice on Turning Your Business Around

Written by Alan Creedy on January 18, 2011. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 1 Comment on Great Advice on Turning Your Business Around

I started my career in business turnarounds in the 1970’s when I worked for a company whose business it was to buy and “refurbish” distressed businesses and resell them. DeathCare is in need of a turn around. There are different types of turnaround strategies and turnaround strategists. Many are simply liquidators who cut costs so drastically that the already wounded patient has no choice but to be sold for parts. But the truth is most businesses can be saved if you are willing to do the work.

I became aware of Jack Stack and his Game of Business in the late ’80’s. He is a savior not a liquidator. Saviors save jobs and businesses and investments. I found early on by luck and prayer that the fastest way to rebuild your business is to engage your employees. They know where the waste is, they know what customers really want and, if they really trust you, they will tell you where you might be going wrong. That is not to say that you should abdicate your role as leader and expect staff to run the place. It’s not that easy. Rather, it means engaging them to give you feedback and input and weighing that input with other information to decide what is the best thing for the firm at this moment.

Watch this 6 minute video, it will encourage you. But one last note of warning: if your financial reports aren’t in order or you don’t understand them or they aren’t timely don’t even start.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

Written by Alan Creedy on January 11, 2011. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 5 Comments on The Emperor Has No Clothes

What employee turnover reveals about your leadership.

Employee turnover can reveal a lot of things. Surely turnover is normal but both too much and too little are signs of serious management issues. The pressures of the last ten years have led many in DeathCare to be frustrated with their employees. An attitude has sprung up that suggests a feeling like: “If somehow I could just fix my employees everything would be alright.”

High turnover rates and no turnover rates are actually two sides of the same coin. Both indicate an unwillingness to develop people and poor to nonexistent communication skills. It is the leader’s role to communicate what is expected of people, to follow through and to teach and to develop. High turnover indicates they have put too much pressure on people to meet expectations without giving them the tools and resources to do the job. Tools and resources include emotional support and guidance. Having no turnover is just as bad. If you are a firm of any size it is impossible that you haven’t got at least one person who doesn’t belong. Even Jesus made a bad hire although He did it on purpose to fulfill prophesy. Most often, when someone tells me (usually with some pride) that no one ever leaves I am willing to take a bet that they have several aimless people who couldn’t find work elsewhere who are just showing up for a paycheck.

Drucker’s Orchestra metaphor is the best illustration:

When a new orchestra leader takes over a poorly performing orchestra he does not have the luxury of letting everyone go and replacing them with top performers. Instead, he must ferret out the worst and work with the remaining average players to help them want to work at peak levels

Great leaders do 4 things extremely well:

Select the right people
Set clear expectations
Motivate people to do their best
Develop people

Interestingly, there are 8 things employees really want from leaders:

Tell me my role, what to do, and give me the rules
1. Clear direction
2. Parameters so they can work within broad outlines.
Discipline my coworker who is out of line
1. Hold people accountable-be fair but hold fast to what is and is not acceptable
Get me excited
1. About the company
2. About what we do
3. About where I fit
Don’t forget to praise me
Don’t scare me
1. They don’t really need to know about everything you worry about
2. Don’t lose your temper
3. Be fair and consistent
Impress me
1. be bold
2. or be creative
3. or be smart
Give me some autonomy
1. Give me a special project
2. Trust me with an opportunity
Set me up to win
1. Indecisive leaders frustrate everyone and make them feel defeated

Do you find it interesting that financial incentives aren’t on this list? Turns out that money is only a demotivator. If you aren’t paid fairly it will demotivate you. Overpaying you will not motivate you or make you more loyal.

The Tyranny of the Ten Call Man

Written by Alan Creedy on August 10, 2010. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 4 Comments on The Tyranny of the Ten Call Man

A Management lesson from the bible

One of the most common and pervasive staffing problems in funeral service is the man or woman who undermines almost every current and future issue management tries to address. They are the “Mayor of the Prep Room”. No matter what initiative you attempt, they quietly work behind the scenes to undo it. Sometimes they employ a subtle mechanism I call being “cooperatively uncooperative”. This means giving the appearance of being on board but quietly “forgetting” to do what they have promised. Worse they are absolute geniuses in providing what seem reasonable excuses why exceptions must be made. As “Mayor of the Prep Room” every attempt to communicate to staff is answered by a meeting after the meeting where they hold forth on “what we are really going to do.” The worst of them are blatant about simply ignoring expectations and just doing things the way they want rather than the way the are asked to do them. Effectively daring management to “Make Me.”

An example is worthwhile. Recently the more progressive funeral homes have implemented monthly, weekly and even daily staff meetings. Attendance is mandatory. Yet every owner that has been successful in establishing regular meetings has shared with me that it meant they had to chase down and face down at least one staff member repeatedly to make them attend. Many owners and managers simply gave up trying and either exempted them or stopped having meetings. This obviously caused other employees to lose heart and wonder (sometimes openly) who was really running the business. Formal power said the owner –but informal power didn’t agree.

Why do owners and managers allow this behavior? They say that it’s because they believe the person is too valuable to lose. They have convinced themselves that they would lose 10, 20 or 30 calls. And maybe they would. But over time the lack of progress in responding to the many challenges we face and the loss of employee morale (not to mention the loss of owner morale) cost much much more than the loss of those calls. I call these trouble makers “ten call men” because the owners live in daily fear they control that many calls.

I don’t like “ten call men” because they arrogantly wield informal power and prevent opportunity without assuming any risk. They play owners and managers like puppets.

Jim Collins, in his “must-read” book, “Good To Great” makes this observation about them:

“We have a wrong person on the bus and we know it. Yet we wait, we delay, we try alternatives, we give a third and fourth chance…we build little systems to compensate for shortcomings…We find our energy diverted…that one person siphons energy away from developing and working with the right people.

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to the right people…

The reason we wait too long often has less to do with concern for that person than our own convenience…Meanwhile all the other people are still wondering: ‘when are you going to do something about this?'”

It is not unusual in my consulting practice to find inspiration in The Bible. On more than one occasion a verse from Proverbs has enabled clients to take long delayed but desperately needed action:

“Cast out the scorner and contention will go out; yea strife and reproach shall cease” Proverbs 22:10

How “Best Purpose” Trumps “Best Practice”

Written by Alan Creedy on May 24, 2010. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Practitioner Forum: Insights and Ideas. 2 Comments on How “Best Purpose” Trumps “Best Practice”

How a part time hostess taught me the most valuable lesson.

It was late 1989. Rachel was then in her mid 70’s. A retired school teacher, she had worked for us for about 6 or 7 years. She was a quiet, unassuming and gracious woman who had that gift of always making you feel welcome. As a part time hostess she was stationed by the front door of our main facility during public hours…often during visitations. I was President of the nation’s oldest and among its most prestigious independently owned funeral homes. We served 850 families and operated two cemeteries and a crematory. Rachel always received more positive comments on our Family Surveys than any other employee full or part time.

The funeral home was widely respected and even admired by both the public we served and professional colleagues for its high standards of service. We believed our 70% + market share was a direct result of those high standards. Certainly, they were a large part of our success.

But Rachel taught me an important lesson about an even more powerful market driver: Best Purpose.

Part of the reason that company was so admired for its high standard of service was a very rigid and unyielding set of employee expectations. We all had a clear understanding of the “musts” and “must-nots” of our daily behavior and routine. Mistakes were typically only made once, if they were made at all. But lest you think this was some closely watched and supervised culture, I should be clear. The resulting quality and superior performance created a level of “Esprit De Corps” that made the behaviors more or less “self sustaining.” The problem was not in the performance but in the unrecognized limitation on “above and beyond” initiative that it unconsciously imposed.

Rachel, independently and without permission, deviated from one of our “cast-in-stone” rules and I was delegated to tell her not to do it again.

Raleigh, NC, where I live, continues to this day to prefer receiving lines over mingling. We discovered that about half way through visitations Rachel was taking the initiative to bring a glass of water to the widow or widower. Food and beverage of any kind was strictly forbidden in any of the public areas of our buildings. It was this act of kindness that I was told to stop. Now, lest you be too harsh, this was the 1980’s and this type of courtesy was not so obvious back then. And besides, this story is not about rules (good or bad) it is about purpose which we had but did not emphasize.

I began my conversation reminding Rachel of the rules and asking her why she was doing it. She responding so graciously that I still remember it. She said, “Mr. Creedy, I understand the rule. But when you buried my husband I remember standing in that same line and thinking I would kill for a glass of water. So, I try to make their life a little easier by bringing it to them.” I remember answering: “Rachel, you just forget that we had this conversation and continue what you are doing.” I went back to the owner and told him that Rachel was doing the right thing and we all needed to be thinking like Rachel.

The lesson is this: Maybe the company was successful because of its high standards but Rachel was more successful because she had a higher purpose.

What is your purpose? If I asked you without warning, could you tell me in less than 60 seconds without thinking? Could your staff?

Simon Cooper, President and COO of Ritz Carlton Hotels, strives for “Scriptless Service.” This means that employees must be able to think, anticipate and act without being told. They must have the ability and latitude to take initiative when they see an opportunity to help a guest.

Rachel taught me that the highest of standards and expectations without clarity of purpose can cause us to miss the most important things.

How people behave is what they believe. Does the behavior of your staff indicate they have high standards and high purpose? Does your behavior?

You may reprint this article by including the following on your publication: