Some people might squirm when Sue Lasher tells them what she does for a living.
"Death is something a lot of people find uncomfortable to talk about," says the manager of Foster's Garden Chapel, a 23,000-sq.-ft. funeral home in southwest Calgary. "But it's not something to be afraid of or avoid. It's part of the cycle of life."
After years of quietly doing business in communities across the country, many funeral home operators say it's now time to educate the public on all the services they provide.
"There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the public never sees," Lasher explains. "We have to send staff to pick up the body, sometimes in the middle of the night.
"Then there's embalming and preparatory work, meeting with the family to complete arrangements, helping them to fill out government paperwork afterwards. Part of the service we provide is to look after the details when the family is going through an emotional time," she says.
Lasher admits there are some days when even the most experienced staff struggle not to cry. "We're human, too," she says. "Tragedy touches us all. The most emotionally difficult times are helping someone with arrangements after their child has just died or someone passes away unexpectedly."
After more than two decades in the business, she still wouldn't trade it for anything.
"This is an intensely rewarding experience. It's hard to describe. You're not helping people cope with death so much as you are helping (them) celebrate and commemorate the lives of their loved ones," Lasher says. "You have to be a real people person in this business."
Part of the marketing efforts have included getting the public to visit funeral homes at relaxed and happy times. About 70 parents and children came to Foster's for the Easter egg hunt earlier this year, laughing and searching through the public areas of the facility, says Lasher. There's also scary fun during the Halloween party held at the funeral home every October.
These public-relations efforts come at a critical time for the industry.
Most recent statistics show the number of deaths nationwide has remained steady. In 2000-2001, Statistics Canada reported 219,645 people passed away. That figure was 234,645 in 2004-2005.
But that could quickly change as Canada's estimated 9.4 million Baby Boomers, or nearly one-third of the total population, gets older each year.
Some industry observers are also worried it could be a double-edged sword - a lot of the funeral directors are nearing or past traditional retirement age themselves.
Lasher says in addition to marketing the funeral services industry in general, the industry needs to promote it as a career option. "It's a stable industry, no matter what the economy. You'll never be out of work.
"If you're good in this business, word travels fast within the industry," says Jeff Caldwell, program co-ordinator of the funeral-services program at Toronto's Humber College. "You will have a lot of job offers."
Caldwell says the first five years after a student obtains a funeral-services licence are usually the "litmus test" on how well they will do in their career. Starting salaries vary across the country, but most students start at about $32,000 a year. After about five years of experience, he adds, average salaries cap out at about $65,000.
Humber's two-year course, which satisfies the formal education requirement of licensing, includes one year of internship in a funeral home. Courses are still done by correspondence during the second year.
"Funeral-home owners really need to look at how we're valuing these new people. They are expected to deal with grieving families, dead and often diseased bodies, being on call often 24 hours a day ... it's not easy at all," Caldwell says. "If things don't change to try and attract more people to this industry soon, there's going to be a big problem. There's already a labour shortage in the U.S."
Robin Heppell is a fourth-generation funeral director and president of Heppell Funeral Solutions, a funeral planning and consulting firm in Victoria. He agrees funeral homes need to promote themselves more in the community.
"You're kind of striking at a nerve within the industry there. That's an underlying issue with a lot of people. I think you have a number of funeral-home owners out there who are older and don't take well to embracing change," Heppell says. "They do things a certain way because that's the way they've always done it.
"You need to look at things like number of calls and profit margins, the business side of the industry."
Statistics Canada reports those funeral industry profit margins remained flat during the first part of this decade. The government agency showed firms had total operating revenue in 2000 of $1.187 billion on $1.063 in expenses for a total profit margin of 10.5 per cent.
By 2004, that revenue rose to $1.466 billion. But there was also $1.320 billion in expenses, for a total profit margin of about 10 per cent.
Heppell says a few small new revenue streams have emerged for funeral homes recently, like DVD tributes, streaming video and environmentally friendly "green funerals."
Some staff find it difficult to get all the options across to families during a one- or two-hour planning meeting, however.
"It's this balancing act to convey all of the options and not make it into an overload of information," he says. "People need to ask what's different now to honour my mom's life."
Another challenge facing the industry is cremation, which doesn't offer the same profit opportunities as a full-scale church funeral. But Heppell says it's not a problem as long as funeral directors look at expenses to rebalance profit margins.
"It's a threat to the funeral director who doesn't adapt well to the change. You need less staff, less cars and have lower operating expenses in other areas," he says.
Costs of funeral services, including cremation, vary widely throughout different provinces and even cities.
"I can't even give you an average or a range because there are so many different variables to take into consideration," said Lasher in Calgary.
(David Hatton can be reached at hatton@businessedge.ca)
