The funeral industry is one of the most dedicated professions. It is their duty to serve families in need. I don’t know anyone who became a funeral director out of a love for tackling regulatory issues. Given that fact, the compliance company who can give the funeral home the most hand holding at the best price will get a fair market share.

  Unfortunately, the hand holding has become sending a regulatory consultant to the funeral home for an annual visit. In the few hours they spend at the work place, they will tackle the basics of bloodborne pathogens and needlestick safety, hazard communications and SDS requirements, formaldehyde safety, and some may touch on personal protective equipment, emergency egress, and perhaps even respirator training.

  The training time will depend on how long the funeral home can get their employees together. In fact, training is often done with some employees missing. Then it is time to sign training certificates and time for everyone (funeral home staff and safety consultant) to lie to each other. They will say how enjoyable it has been and how they look forward to doing it again next year. Sound familiar? The funeral home people know it is not a perfect system. Only the safety consultants know how bad it truly is.

  Here is reason number one of why it is bad. Most funeral homes will hire new employees during the year (in between this year’s training and the next). It is against OSHA regulations to put an employee to work where they are exposed to hazards without first giving that employee the appropriate training. That will generally result in one or more serious penalties. Why multiple penalties? In the case of a newly hired embalmer, they did not train for formaldehyde hazards, for bloodborne pathogen hazards, for sharps hazards, for hazard communications, and so on.

  The second reason this training was bad is that it was limited to the subjects most funeral directors think OSHA is about. Case in point; there was no opportunity for the appropriate employees to receive ladder safety training, slip – trip and fall training, office safety training, pressure washing safety training, painting safety training, heat and cold stress safety training, power tool training, etc.

  Most funeral homes do not realize that for a few dollars more, they could have an industrial safety training program that would include everything they needed in the standard funeral home syllabus. They don’t think there is a lot of value to having this. I have had customers have a fatality from an employee falling from a ladder. By law, every job fatality prompts a call to OSHA within 48 hours. An investigation will follow. Usually, the investigation results in substantial penalties. Not this one though. The employee had been trained in ladder safety.

  That is some of the value. Avoiding employees making an end run around workers compensation is another. Being on the right side of an employee’s mental anguish suit is still another.

  Many funeral homes think they just don’t have the skills necessary to get into these general industry topics. Pardon me here, but this is where many in the funeral industry are showing their ignorance. Do they think inserting a CD for a bloodborne pathogen PowerPoint presentation is different doing the same thing for showing a ladder safety video? 

  Do they think having an employee sign off on formaldehyde safety training is any different than having the employee sign off on safe mowing procedures? They are just forms with signature lines. In truth, industrial training is not required annually, so it is easier than basic funeral home training.

  When funeral homes opt to have an expert come in once a year and conduct their basic funeral home training, they give up training employees as they are hired. They give up being able to train with a wide industrial platform that also includes the funeral basics. They give it up. They get less. They pay more out in fees and if inspected they will pay significantly more in fines. They also give up control of their own safety program. This is an unforced error. It’s more than a bad call. It’s the wrong call.