SIA Victorian Safety Conference 2017

1. THE PSYCHOSOCIAL & PHYSICAL
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
EXPERIENCE OF INDEPENDENT FUNERAL
DIRECTORS: A PILOT STUDY.
30th August 2017
Denis Cauduro
Master of Ergonomics Safety and Health
(M.ESH Latrobe University)

2. INTRODUCTION
Role of Australian funeral directors changed over years:
❖ religious & cultural beliefs.
❖ multicultural society.
❖ technological advances.
❖ uncertain economic times
❖ smaller operators competing against global organisations

3. PROJECT AIMS & SIGNIFICANCE
Aim: to better understand the OHS experience of the
independent funeral directors (IFD) work environment.
• physical demands
• hazardous chemicals
• psychosocial demands
• little research on independent funeral directors.
• focus on manual handling, infection control and hazardous
chemicals
• dealing with both +ve & -ve stressors.
(

4. RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT
- aim refined following presentation to the Independent
Funeral Directors Association of Australia (IFDAA).
- IFDs have limited view of:
- potential impacts of their own knowledge, attitudes
and beliefs (Michaelson, 1995)
- full spectrum of risks to themselves and/or their
workforce inherent in this work.

5. - systems framework designed for analysing risks &
hazardous exposures used to document work and related
OHS factors.
• psychosocial,
• organisational
• physical risk factors

6. Figure 1.1: IFD Perceived risks and hazardous exposure

7. - therefore increased emphasis on exploring the psychosocial
aspects of the OH&S experience of independent funeral
directors.
Previous workload research links job and personal demands
can impact
• stress and fatigue.
• performance quality.
• physical injuries and stress-related illness (Macdonald,
2003).
Figure 1.2: Macdonald (2003) A
multidimensional model of workload

8. …need for further exploration beyond just physical &
environmental demands to factors related to:
• client expectations,
• work-life balance,
• regulatory compliance and
• demands of operating a small business.
Also staffing & other resources, small business operation

9. Figure 1.3: Work demands and individual factors of the IFD
experience identified by IFDAA members organised using
Macdonald’s model.

10. METHODS
- Survey and Qualitative semi structured in-depth interviews
- Participants with knowledge & experience
- Australia wide population.
- Defined as IFDs
Participants were also required to be:
- aged 18 years or over
- able to read and write English
- currently working in the FD industry.

11. RESULTS:
SURVEY DATA:
23 participants - (14 Male/9 Female)
Comprising of:
• Sole Traders/Self Employed
• Employees
DEMOGRAPHICS & WORK
ARRANGEMENTS:
60% Owned own business (14)
40% Employees (9)

12. AGE:
Average Age
Male = 52.8
Minimum Age
Male = 33
Maximum Age
Male = 70
Average Age
Female = 51.8
Minimum Age
Female = 36
Maximum Age
Female = 65
BUSINESS SIZE:
Males
86% (12) In a
Business <19
Persons
Females
100% (9) In a
Business <19
Persons

13. WORK HOURS:
Average Work Hours Per Week For Males And Females
=57.65
69% Participants
Work 6 Days A Week
And
40% Of Participants
Work 7 Days A Week
Work Work Work Work Work Work Work!

14. PSYCHOSOCIAL HAZARDS
95% of participants
found their job either
moderately stressful or
very stressful
▪ 23% - Stress Training.
▪ 32% - Anti-stress Policies.
▪ 32% - Counselling Services
For Staff.

15. ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
Exposure to noise: 1 hour/day males and females
- variety of strategies and control measures.
Exposures to biological materials (including human flesh):
- 10 hours/ week males & 9 hours/week females.
Control measures provided to prevent
health problems related to direct sunlight.

16. MANUAL PHYSICAL HAZARDS
21% males & 67% females - having to carry or lift loads
92% males & 87% females - provided with lifting equipment
100% - pain and tiredness
96% - pain in legs & hips
100% tiredness / fatigue

17. INDIVIDUAL RESOURCES
Education - high school or less.
Further education - 14% males undergraduate degree
Low participation in other training

18. INTERVIEW DATA RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Analysis identified consistent themes including:
• long hours,
• always being available,
• fatigue,
• long travel distances,
• no industry training,
• no ability to take time off,
• lack of support systems
• coming into the industry as outsider.

19. Figure 4.1: Model of identified IFDs psychosocial and other
OHS experience

20. WORK DEMANDS
Travel
demands
Long distances, hours in vehicles and travel
not considered work
So we’re based in Derby (far north-west WA) and we cover from Derby throughout
the whole Kimberly, so I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Kimberly. So we just
did a funeral this morning in Fitzroy (Crossing) and now P has gone onto Wyndham
he has a funeral there tomorrow, so from Derby to Wyndham you are looking at
about 1,000km, so at the moment in the last 3 weeks we have been going there
every week. So last week we did two funerals in Kununurra, one on Thursday and
one on Friday, then back to Halls Creek for Saturday, then we got home Saturday
night. So this time were doing Fitzroy (Crossing) today, Fitzroy (Crossing) tomorrow
and Wyndham tomorrow (Female WA, remote participant).
We travel quite a bit really, we travel all over Sydney, anywhere in the state of NSW
really, we travel wherever required (Male, Sydney participant).

21. Regulatory
demands
Legal & other paperwork, professional
demands, dealing with multiple
bureaucracies and frequent systems
changes
I think the funeral industry would be better off being regulated; I think it would be
much better. I believe there are too many industry associations, there’s like 4 or 5
associations, we just really need one. Procedures at hospitals with doctors’ etc needs to
be stream-lined and needs to be consistent throughout. Every hospital seems to have
their own paper work or own procedures and some are from the absolute dark ages.
Standards need to be upheld across the industry and if anything happens it (should) not
be swept under the carpet. Also if things are changed in the industry it needs to be
discussed with the members before the changes are made, like death certificates were
changed two years ago and it was an absolute debacle, they changed the computer
system and did not tell us and it was a shambles (Male, Sydney participant).

22. Work/life balance
demands
Working 24/7, infrequent breaks,
running a small business, positive and
negative stressors, difficulty sustaining
friendships
Being a small business we are not in a position to pass on work to others so we have
to be available 24/7. We try and keep things to business hours but being a small
business we don’t have that luxury (Male, Sydney participant).
Basically I am available 7 days a week; I’m available 24/7 (Male, WA city
participant).

23. Both negative and positive stressors.
At times(the stressors are) phenomenal, umm I suppose you have to learn how to
deal with not to take other people’s grief on board, but obviously with the hours I
work and running a business, can be very hard and very high at times. Put it this way
I’m on blood pressure medication and things like that. People can ring you up at
10pm at night, so the stressors are fairly heavy. So I would say and 8 out of 10
(Male, WA city participant).
Satisfaction with being able to provide efficient service was
identified as a positive experience.
(Long pause while thinking), I actually enjoy it, (laughs) yeah there are times when
things are out of your control; but with regard to one of the funerals in Sydney, the
death occurred on the Thursday and they wanted the funeral done by Monday
because relatives were leaving, so that was a bit of a nightmare but it panned out
OK (Male, NSW Rural).

24. A poorer work-life balance due to working Saturdays and
Sundays
Oh yeah, you don’t get asked out with your friends, I don’t have many friends because
I’m always working. There are business networking stuff, things like that chamber of
commerce, things like that, that you are involved in, so even though you may not be in
the office 7 or 8 pm at night, you’re out doing networking meetings (Male, WA city
participant).

25. Communication
demands
Client expectations, managing workers,
contacting clients and constant phone
calls
Clients expect service when they want it.
I make sure I can have contact by phone wherever I am. I still took phone calls when I
was away for the week; when you are running a small business you just have to be
available (Male, Sydney participant).
Recruiting, training, retaining and managing staff was
identified as an ongoing stressor.
Probably managing staff, and the office side of things for me (are the major
stressors), for me personally its office management, dealing with marketing and the
electronic and technology side of things (Male WA, city participant).

26. INDIVIDUAL DEMANDS
Individual support
demands
Family, friends, external support, prior
education and training
I suppose we are lucky because being in a small town and (as I am) still working as
a registered nurse on a casual basis, I’m still very much in contact with the health
system and the support networks (Female WA, remote participant).

27. Outsider demands Not born into or grown up within the
industry/falling into the role
About nearly 10 years, I got involved for a little bit of a life change, I worked for a
bank in the financial area, I decided I wanted to do a little bit of a change, so I started
looking for some casual work and I found a casual job with one of the biggest funeral
company’s in Sydney, so I worked for them on a casual basis for probably about two
years, but it was pretty much 4 ½ days a week, it wasn’t too casual (Male, Sydney
participant).

28. Psychosocial/emotional
demands
Demands on family/friendships;
finding who to talk to, with support
only through informal personal
networks
The participants identified that dealing with death as a
business put a strain on their social and familial
relationships.
Because P and I are always in the car a lot (travelling for work) we generally talk to
each other about issues and are able to bounce things off each other (Female, WA
remote participant).

29. Training/education
demands
On-the-job/in house training, as no
external courses available
None of the IFDs identified having been provided with
training or education around the psychosocial demands of
their work.
I have worked for 2-3 different companies (before becoming and IFD), so got a lot of my
training through just working with them, a lot of people in the funeral industry are
casual workers, a lot of them don’t have higher education, so most people just get
trained on the job. It’s probably something that does need to be addressed, but also
the industry needs to be regulated in that sense (Male Sydney participant).

30. Identified IFDs psychosocial and other OHS experience

31. Fatigue
Erratic work times
Broken sleep patterns
Long hours
Peripatetic work
Umm on Monday and Tuesdays and Wednesday. I’m generally in the
office so I work a 9-10 hour day and then umm I don’t know Thursday
Friday and Saturday they are probably anywhere from 12 to 18 hour
days (Male, Sydney participant).

32. Conclusion
IFDs require:
- practical strategies to improve their work experience.
- consistent appropriate education & training
- Controls for both physical & psychosocial hazards
- Professional registration:
• appropriate competencies and,
• ongoing practical mentoring and,
• active involvement of professional associations.
- Use of existing work-related controls in similar occupations
- Consultation and communication with IFD and other FD
organisations & Worksafe Australia to develop a code of
practice and industry standards.

33. Thank you…..
A coffin being placed in a horse-drawn hearse. Copied from Mrs E. Madden, 1988. The Biggest Family Album of
Australia, Museum Victoria.