Funeral careers

It’s a service business so we’ve got a range of funeral facing roles to offer: Funeral Director, Funeral Arranger, Operative/Driver, Embalmer, Administrator. Or less operational roles would be monumental masons and pre-paid plan sellers. And like any business, we have professional managers in Marketing, Finance, IT and Human Resources.

The role of a funeral director varies greatly, but in its simplest form, they are there to build relationships with clients to arrange a funeral. This is done by meeting with clients, listening to them, guiding them through the funeral process by giving examples of possibilities and fulfilling their instructions. This involves a great deal of interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Other essential skills include problem solving, time-keeping, attention to detail and project management.

At the funeral, you’ll see our Funeral Operatives drive our limousines and hearses, they’ll carry in and take out the coffin, distribute printed Orders of Services and acknowledgment cards at the venue, oversee any collection boxes and set out the flowers. They’re also the guys who join the funeral directors, in taking the deceased into our care 24/7, every day of the year. It’s not unusual for our funeral directors to have started in this role and we often recruit internally as a result.

Our branch administrators are the face of our company within the communities and towns that we serve. Often from the local area, these highly capable and incredibly professional individuals will welcome families to their branches. They will take in the clothing or personal belongings for a loved one, handover ashes after a funeral and oversee family visits.

We operate to a strict code of quality so our embalming professionals ensure loved ones receive the highest standards of care. Many of our staff are already BIE (British Institute of Embalming) qualified, with newer staff working on a pathway to achieve their qualification. Embalmers care for our clients, provide a full embalming service, dress and ensure appearance and presentation enables families to say goodbye.

Recruitment from sites like Indeed and social media platforms are a great way to find talent. Equally, we’ve had success from our own network. There’s generally no need for previous experience or qualifications, as full training would be done in-house and for specific roles, we would recruit based on their interpersonal skills rather than education/qualifications.

It’s not something we have on offer at the moment but we’re looking to develop a programme where young people can explore all elements of the business with the intention that they are able to stay with us in a role best suited to them.

As well as in-house training, we offer, and actively encourage, all our funeral directors the opportunity to study towards a Diploma in Funeral Directing through the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD). There’s no specific requirement for a funeral director to be qualified but we see this as a great way to invest in the funeral directors so they are well-equipped to do the job. For our non-funeral professionals, they pursue relevant sector CPD and have access to training opportunities where required.