Funeral Management Glossary A - Z

- the process of guiding and/or supervising the activities of an organization to achieve plans and objectives.

Actuating (directing, leading)

- the art of making the public aware of the services or commodities that a business has for sale.

Advertising

- a means of supplying support after a death has occurred.

Aftercare (post-funeral counseling)

- a summary of how a business owner, manager, or entrepreneur intends to organize the business endeavor and implement the activities necessary for the venture to succeed.

Business plan

- the process of measuring organizational and individual performance with predetermined standards or expected results.

Controlling (evaluating)

- a process intended to prevent or limit the development of post-traumatic stress in people exposed to critical incidents.

Critical incident stress debriefing

- a sudden misfortune, resulting in the loss of life and/or property.

Disaster

- an unforeseen combination of circumstances that result in a need for immediate action.

Emergency

- study of workplace design; the study of how a workplace and the equipment used therein can best be designed for comfort, efficiency, safety, and productivity.

Ergonomics

-the monitoring and maintaining of the funeral establishment, physical plant, workspace and funeral equipment.

Facilities management

- the utilization and monitoring of assets, revenue, expenditures and capital.

Financial management

- the administration of a funeral service enterprise, the activities of which encompass marketing, office, human resources, facilities, and financial management.

Funeral service management

- broad statements about what an organization wants to achieve; developed in the strategic planning process; they form the basic plan or direction toward which decisions and activities are focused. (Goals are motivational in nature and are usually stated in broad, general terms without reference to a time period).

Goals

- motivating people in organizations to develop teamwork, which effectively fulfills their needs and achieves organizational objectives.

Human relations

- the process of acquiring, training, developing, motivating, and appraising a sufficient quantity of qualified employees to perform necessary activities; developing activities and an organizational climate conducive to maximum efficiency and worker satisfaction.

Human resource management (personnel management)

- the process of planning and executing the development, pricing, promotion, and distribution of an organization's goods and/or services.

Marketing management

- the process of energizing, channeling and sustaining people's behavior.

Motivating

- specific statement of ends, the achievement of which are to be completed within a specific time period. (Objectives are used in the management control process and provide a quantitative and time framework to the organization's goals. Objectives are intended to be accomplished by a specific date and are stated in terms, preferably in such a way that there is some measurable basis for determining the extent to which they have been achieved).

Objectives

- the supervision of administrative duties, functions and equipment.

Office management

- the process of assigning tasks, allocating resources, and coordinating the activities of individuals and groups to implement plans.

Organizing

- the process of setting performance objectives and determining what actions should be taken to accomplish them.

Planning

-a form of leadership that begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve others first which is a conscious choice that brings one to aspire to lead.

Servant Leadership

- specific procedures to be followed to ensure that all essential details are addressed in the manner that the reasonably prudent funeral director would follow under the same or similar circumstances.

Standards of care

-a process used by human resource departments to locate, hire, train and retain the best qualified employees.

Talent management

- in the funeral service context, sales of funeral goods to consumers by sellers other than a funeral establishment.

Third party merchandise sales

- the efforts of all members of an organization directed to ensure that quality in the production of goods and services is achieved.

Total quality management(TQM)

-cumulative transformative effect upon the professional working with survivors of traumatic life events; individual exposure to traumatic eventthrough first-hand account or narrative of an event.

Vicarious trauma