Building bench strength is not just smart business strategy. It is a moral obligation to the future of funeral service. 

I recently had the profound privilege of serving as a reviewer for scholarships through the Funeral Service Foundation. 

As part of the process, I was able to watch seven two-minute videos submitted by mortuary school students from across the United States and Canada. Each one shared why they chose this profession and what receiving a scholarship would mean to them. 

I want to tell you what I saw, because it moved deeply, and I believe it should move you too. 

They are coming into this profession with their whole hearts

What struck me most, immediately and undeniably, was their passion. This is not a job to these young people. It is a calling. Most of them came to funeral service because they were personally touched by death in their own families. They experienced firsthand what it means for a skilled, compassionate funeral director to step in during the most devastating moment of a family's life, and they decided, right then, that they wanted to be that person for someone else. 

Some of them looked at their notes. Some of them were clearly nervous in front of the camera. But every single one of them spoke from the heart. And that, to me, is everything. You can teach skills. You cannot manufacture genuine care for people. These students have it, and they are coming into our profession ready to give it. 

They love the personalized, life-honoring events that families are requesting today. They see the future of funeral service not as something to fear or survive, but as something to shape. That gave me real, genuine hope. 

And then I heard the hard part

As inspired as I was by their passion, I was equally troubled by the obstacles standing between these students and the moment they can fully serve our profession. 

Most of them desperately need the scholarship funding. They are carrying student loan debt. They are raising young children. Many of them see their licensure as three, four, or even five years away. Some have less than $10,000 in savings. My strong guess is that most of them are taking online classes while working full-time jobs just to keep the lights on, with their current employers unknowingly funding the very education that will allow them to leave. 

This is a shame. And I am going to say that plainly, because it needs to be said. 

We have employers across this profession lamenting that they cannot find good people, that they cannot find licensees, that the talent pipeline is dry. And yet, right now, there are passionate, capable, heart-driven students in mortuary schools across North American who are struggling financially to even complete their education. They want to be in our profession. They are working toward it, and they are largely doiong it without our help. 

The question I want every owner and manager to sit with

If you are an owner or manager reading this, I want to ask you something directly: 

Why are you not sponsoring a student? 

I am not asking that to shame you. I am asking it because I believe most owners genuinely want to solve the talent shortage, and many simply have not connected the dots between tis problem and this solution. 

At Baue Funeral Homes, Crematory, and Cemetery, we employed a handful of mortuary students each year. For the most promising ones, we helped cover schooling expenses. In return, they signed an agreement committing to maintain a B average and remain with us for a minimum of two years after graduating and completing their internship. 

This arrangement worked beautifully. It brought us fresh talent. It brought us motivated, appreciative team members who knew our culture from the inside out before they ever held a license. It helped us find and develop the best and brightest students who were still in school. And it gave them something priceless: a path, a mentor, and a community that cared about their success. 

Even when we did not have open positions, we helped students in our network by writing recommendations, coaching them on interviewing skills, and helping them build strong resumes. Because we understood that investing in the future of the profession was not just good for us. It was good for everyone. 

What bench strength really means, and why it matters now more than ever

In sports, bench strength refers to the depth of talent available when your starters need support. In business, it means building the layers of capable, trained, ready people who can step up when the moment demands it. 

Our profession is at a crossroads that makes bench strength not a luxury but a survival strategy. 

Baby Boomers are retiring. Staff who carried the profession through the extraordinary weight of the pandemic years are burned out and, in many cases, leaving. Research from the American Board of Funeral Service Education tells us that women now make up 75 percent of funeral service graduates. This next generation of licensees is predominantly female, and many of them are not receiving the development, mentoring, or investment they need and deserve to become the leaders our profession requires. 

Research from Gallup and from my own coaching work tells us clearly: this next generation stays where they feel mentored, developed, and valued. They leave when they are ignored, undertrained, and left to figure it out alone. The retention answer is not a mystery. It is a mentor. It is an investment. It is a relationship built before a student even earns a license. 

And now, a word directly to you, the woman still in school or early in your career

If you are one of the students working through mortuary school right now, juggling a full-time job and student loans and maybe a young family, I need you to hear this: 

Your passion is not wasted. Your persistence is not invisible. What you are doing is extraordinary. 

And you do not have to do it entirely alone. 

There are scholarships available through the Funeral Service Foundation and through organizations like the Cremation Association of North America and many of our state and national associations. Apply for them. Every single one of you qualify for. Do not leave that money on the table because you feel you are not ready or deserving enough. You are. 

Seek out employers who will invest in you, not just employ you. There is a difference, and it matters enormously for your development as a future leader. Ask in your interviews what training and mentoring programs look like. Ask about career paths. Ask how the firm supports women in growth roles. These are not unreasonable questions. They are the questions of someone who knows their value. 

Connect with communities like the Funeral Women Lead Foundation, where you can find coaching, mentoring, and a network of women who understand exactly what you are navigating because they have navigated it too. 

What we all owe the next generation

I have spent more than four decades in this profession. I have seen it at its most beautiful and its most broken. And what I know with certainty is this: 

The future of funeral service will be determined by how we treat the people entering it today. 

Not by the buildings we own, Not by the technology we adopt. Not by the cremation rates or the market trends. By the people. 

When I watched those seven students on video, I saw the future of our profession looking back at me. Hopeful. Determined. Genuinely called to serve. They reminded me of why I fell in love with this work decades ago. They also reminded me how much depends on the choices that owners and managers make right now. 

Mentoring is not a program you install. It is a culture you build, one relationship at a time, from the very first day a new person walks through your door. Research consistently shows that mentored employees are happier, more confident, less anxious, and far more likely to stay. You solve your retention problem and your talent pipeline problem simultaneously when you make mentoring central to who you are as a company. 

So here is my challenge to every owner and manager reading this today: 

• Reach out to your local mortuary school this week. Ask how you can get involved. Explore sponsoring a student. Create a structured internship with a real development plan, not just tasks to complete, but mentoring, learning, and a genuine path forward. 
• If you have room, bring a student on. If you do not have a current opening, help them anyway. A recommendation letter, a resume review, a mock interview: all of these are investments that cost you very little and mean everything to someone just starting out. 
• Donate to scholarship funds like the Funeral Service Foundation. Even a modest contribution changes the trajectory of someone's career. 
• Commit to building mentoring into your company culture, not as an afterthought, but as a cornerstone of how you develop every member of your team from day one. 

Because the students I watched on those videos? They are going to become funeral directors and embalmers and cremation specialists and eventually managers and owners. The only question is whether they will do it feeling supported and invested in, or whether they will do it alone, hanging on by a thread, in spite of a profession that could have caught them and choose not to. 

Let's make a commitment together

The future of funeral service is bright. I genuinely believe that. I saw it in the eyes and heard it in the voices of those seven students. This next generation has the heart for this work. They have the passion, the purpose, and the determination. 

What they need from us is the bridge. 

Let's commit, together, to helping the next generation of licensees become not just graduates, but confident, capable, celebrated leaders int he caregiving profession they love. 

I would love to hear from you. If you are a student navigating this path, tell me what you need most. If you are an owner or manager, tell me what is stopping you from sponsoring a student or building a mentoring program, and let's work through it together. Drop your thoughts in the comments. The next era of funeral service leadership is counting on what we do right now. 

Cheering you on, always, 

Lisa Baue