As of 2017, the Millennial generation filled the majority of positions in the US workforce (35%), more than both the Baby Boomer (25%) and Gen X-ers (33%). It is predicted that by 2030, Millennials will hold 75% of the roles in the death care industry, a very large increase in a very short period of time.
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As baby boomers retire, they take decades of experience and honed knowledge, skills, and abilities with them. Young professionals, even with all their energy and excitement, cannot immediately replace the decades of experience of your senior staff. The upside is that these incoming employees won’t carry years of pre-conceptions and assumptions about their community, which will make their onboarding and training that much easier. The downside is that it takes time and well-thought out training programs to get new recruits up to speed.

The US cremation rate passed 50% for the first time in 2016. We can officially say it – cremation is the new tradition. As consumer preferences have changed, the knowledge and skills required from funeral directors to work with consumers has changed as well. As an employer, it means you require specific sets of skills in your employees and expectations for their experience and training. It requires innovation.
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Our hard-working schools provide the education, but they can’t make a professional – only experience and guidance can do that. This component is why so many states and provinces require apprenticeships before licensure as well as continued education to maintain licensure. A mid-career professional considering their advancement can’t return to school easily, so they must rely on CE providers to address the gaps. In a previous blog post we talked about how to assess the quality of a learning experience, but how do you assess the importance of the topic presented? In this cremation-focused world, how can you know you’re getting the latest in industry education to meet the current needs of your community?

What makes someone successful at their job? How do we evaluate staff to assess their skills? How do you know you have a solid base of knowledge to build on as you move forward in your career? CANA is working to address the fundamentals of the profession as we know it today now that cremation is the new tradition.

Competencies are the foundation of every profession – these are sets of knowledge, abilities and skills that a person needs to be successful in their job. Competencies are used in many ways within each profession:

• Talent development programs should be heavily based on competencies and structured to teach foundational skills and knowledge first and build employees up to their highest level of performance to prepare them for advancement.
• Continuing education programs should always be tied to specific competencies, not developed by someone who teaches what THEY think needs to be taught. If a program isn’t teaching someone a knowledge, skill or ability needed for success then that program is a waste of time and money.
• Competencies are used for writing job descriptions to identify traits and experience that are important when hiring a new person.
• Succession planning, which is a huge topic right now as a significant portion of the profession prepares to retire, should include competencies. When evaluating which employees may be well suited to move into other positions, comparing their current competencies to those needed in the new positions will identify any gaps, which may need to be filled through education courses before promoting that person. Employees should never be promoted first and trained later. They should always be provided education and support to prepare them for the new role so they can step in and find success right away.
• Many professions offer certifications to recognize achievement of individuals in certain areas. The best certifications are based on competencies. Individuals must identify their own skill gaps, take education courses, read papers or books, practice doing certain tasks and any number of activities to help fill that gap. At the end, they have to demonstrate achievement of those competencies through rigorous testing that validates not only knowledge, but implementation of skills.
  • A few examples include the Human Resource Professional (HPR) designation from SHRM, the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) designation from EIC and the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) designation from ATD.

The funeral profession is no stranger to competencies. For example, every seven years the Conference of International Funeral Service Examining Boards conducts a task analysis of the role of both funeral directors and embalmers in order to determine what content to test graduates on when they complete a funeral service or mortuary science program. Through this task analysis they ask practicing professionals about their daily jobs in order to determine what the common tasks are, and then they determine what you need to know in order to do those tasks.

After completing school, students generally complete an apprenticeship where they learn hands on skills to apply that knowledge learned in school. Once the apprenticeship is over, state and provincial agencies take over and monitor continued professional development through required continuing education. And that’s where CANA enters the lifelong learning continuum. As we look at competencies within our profession, CANA believes we could be doing more related to cremation.
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We can’t set employees up for success if we aren’t teaching them the knowledge, skills and abilities that are specific to cremation, particularly the employees who graduated many years ago, and have seen the profession rapidly changing around them. This is what we refer to as a skills gap – when only a limited set of the population has the needed competencies to do the job. And we see a big skill gap when it comes to cremation.

Fear not, CANA friends. After all, we are All Things Cremation. We have been diligently working to identify those cremation competencies and will be developing education programs and other resources needed to support employees as they work to achieve them. We can’t wait to share them with you. Be sure to attend CANA’s 100th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention with your staff where I’ll preview these competencies and talk about how to use them to support your employees and improve your bottom line — and earn some professional and innovative continuing education while you're at it. And watch for future blog posts where I explain the process we go through to identify competencies.

The Memorial Idea began in the cemetery. The establishment of a memorial identity for each person who lived and died was the most important part of the rite of passage called death. Cremationists quickly adopted the idea to include cremation, but the obstacles they faced were harder to overcome than those of their cemeterian counterparts.

Clifford Zell, Sr., owner of the Valhalla Chapel of Memories in St. Louis, was the originator of the slogan of the Cremation Association of America (CANA’s original name), a variation of which is still the mantra of our association today. It was during the 1933 convention that Clifford Zell made the statement: “There is one thought I hope that I can impress most deeply on all crematory men – cremation is not the end – cremation alone is not complete, but is only an intermediate step towards the permanent preservation of the cremated remains.”

The Memorial Idea stated simply that no cremation was complete without inurnment, which always included ALL of the following:

For many years, the urn memorial was so important to cremationists that CANA’s logo, as the Cremation Association of America (CAA), featured illustrations of an urn in a niche.

2. ​The engraving of the memorial urn

3. ​The permanent placement of the memorial urn

Just as every person who lives must die, so too should every person who dies have a permanent resting place. Just as the ancients inscribed names on the urns of their loved ones, the ancient Greeks erected Tumuli in memory of their dead, the Egyptians erected the pyramids, the Romans inurned in columbaria, Kings and Queens entombed in Westminster Abbey, so the placement of the urn became the permanent memorial that cremationists required. This was the utmost concern of the cremationists who were active in the Cremation Association. The inurnment of cremated remains was not always a priority for cremationists, but became the sole purpose of the plight of the association beginning in the late 1920s.

Scattering cremated remains, permanent destruction of cremated remains, and home retention of cremated remains were all in direct conflict with the Memorial Idea. Often, the practice was equated with desecration and was fervently discouraged.

The conventions of the Cremation Association were breeding grounds to further the Memorial Idea to those who chose cremation. Lawrence Moore, long-time president and operator of the Chapel of the Chimes in California, was the most instrumental character in the cremation world – he coined the word “inurnment,” invented the first electric-powered cremator, and began the practice of including a unique metallic disc used in every cremation to identify cremated remains. He also was the first to suggest using a cardboard temporary urn to encourage the selection of a permanent urn.

Throughout the meetings of the Cremation Association, there were frequent discussions about standardizing the practices of crematories across the country. Many ideas were exchanged on how this could be effected to encompass the cremation customs from the east coast to the west coast and the mix of both in the Midwest. A committee was formed and, after much research, in 1941 the Manual of Standard Crematory and Columbarium Practices was adopted.

This manual was considered the textbook of the operations of the modern crematory and columbarium, and became the bible by which cremationists promulgated the Memorial Idea. Throughout the manual, sections dealt with all aspects of operating a crematory and columbarium, but the sections that discussed the handling of cremated remains and the permanent placement of memorial urns were the most doctrinal in nature.

During the Memorial Idea era of cremation’s history, most cremationists refused to pulverize, crush or grind cremated remains to reduce their consistency to the cremated remains we picture today. It was the belief that the reduction of the remains to the finer consistency was a desecration to the remains and gave the impression of valueless ash. Their stance also enforced the need for a permanent urn and to aide in the prevention of scattering.

Much of this may seem like heavy cremationist doctrine, but the cremationists were quite successful in their endeavors. This time frame in cremation’s history in America caused some of the most beautiful memorials imaginable to be created, and they remain beautiful to this day. The idea also caused some very successful revenues for the cremationists.

The Memorial Idea revealed the heart of the true cremationist in every way. It took cremation from the hands of reform societies and placed it in the gentle care of business men who brought the idea to life. Unfortunately, by the 1970s, a new idea in cremation began to move in. The face of cremation was about to change drastically.

Cremation’s transformation began in the 1960s. Although influenced by many factors, this change was primarily due to a movement toward simplicity. It was in 1963 that Jessica Mitford wrote her satirical expose, The American Way of Death, lambasting all aspects of the allied funeral and memorial professions. Urged by the excitement that her book spawned, businesses formed to advocate for simple direct cremation and provided easy avenues for those preferring minimal services.

The Memorial Idea began to lose hold, and, as it did, the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), led by Genevieve “Jinger” Zell, daughter-in-law of Clifford Zell, Sr., mentioned above, did everything possible to maintain the integrity of what CANA viewed was right: the permanent memorialization of cremated remains. National ad campaigns were initiated and the association’s trade magazine began publication in 1965 to disseminate the news and advocacy of the association.

The simplification process that cremation underwent was underscored by the general public’s idea of death care practices. However, this movement did not only affect the memorialization side of cremation – all areas were affected. Cremation chambers were manufactured to ship to different locations, where they had been previously constructed on-site. The first modern crematories were constructed in the basements and wings of chapels across the country, but soon were moved from chapels to garages and metal out-buildings.

During the transformation, scattering cremated remains became more and more popular. Crematories installed “cremulators” and processors to reduce the consistency of the cremated remains in order to facilitate cremation. Did scattering encourage processing or, as was the fear of Lawrence Moore in the Memorial Idea period, did processing encourage scattering? The answer is unknown. However, it is clear that the two went hand-in-hand during this time. With the focus of cremation changing from disposition and memorialization to cost-conscious simplicity, the cremation urn industry changed as well. While a majority of urns sold during the time of the memorial idea were constructed of fine cast or spun bronze, aluminum and wood now became popular options.

Through all the changes that the cremation profession has faced over the years, the constant underlying ability to succeed amidst the challenges of doing business has proved stronger with membership in the Cremation Association of North America. Since its inception, the association has maintained cremation as its theme, and no other professional association has the roots, track record, singular focus, or knowledge that ours does. All of this has been gained by experience and by maintaining the ability to adapt to the needs and desires of those our members serve.

What does the future hold for cremationists? That is entirely dependent on the attitude of the cremationist. If we simply measure how far our profession has come in the years since America’s first modern cremation in 1876, and review how CANA has guided this profession for more than a century since its formation in 1913, we will quickly realize that our true potential lies ahead. In reading the proceedings of almost 40-years-worth of annual conventions of the Cremation Association, I have learned some very important lessons that I can use in my daily dealings with families choosing cremation.

Paper dissolves, computers crash, but when a name is engraved on a permanent memorial urn made of material that will last, or on a stone marking a place of rest, these permanent, tangible signs provide stepping stones for future generations. May we never lose sight of the ever-present necessity of our association and our calling, and may we never fail to put families and their needs and desires ahead of our own. We must do all that we can do to maintain the heritage of our ever-changing culture. To do so is to fully serve those who call on us in times of need. It is, after all, what our life’s work is all about.