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Page A35 JUNE 2017 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A
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NEWS Association CONTINUED
The Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association
and Thanexus Collaborate on Benchmarking Survey
EAST WEYMOUTH,MA— The
Massachusetts Funeral Directors
Association (MFDA) and Thanex-
us, Inc. have joined together to
conduct a wide-scale compensation
survey of the funeral director popu-
lation in Massachusetts.
The partnership was formed to
allow the MFDA to collect com-
pensation and salary information
for its membership without com-
promising the anonymity of the
responses. By using a third party,
the data collected will be held in
absolute confidence by Thanexus
and will be reported only as state-
wide averages and medians to the
MFDA. Neither the raw data, nor
the individual funeral home re-
to the broad geographical collec-
tion of data at the national level,
“we recognize that state-specif-
ic data will help us answer those
questions more comprehensively.
We’re confident that the human
resource professionals at Thanex-
us will provide a tremendous new
resource which will greatly benefit
our Massachusetts members.”
The MFDA is the funeral di-
rectors’ professional community
and is the recognized voice and
resource for information on is-
sues affecting the funeral service
profession as well as the bereaved
community throughout Massa-
chusetts. The MFDA represents
more than 500 funeral establish-
ments and is the largest represen-
tative organization of funeral ser-
vice professionals in New England.
Thanexus, Inc. is a funeral ser-
vice cooperative that seamlessly
integrates human resources, mar-
keting and communications, and
risk management services for New
Jersey’s independently-owned fu-
neral homes. Thanexus shares em-
ployment-related responsibilities
with 77 stockholders in 138 regis-
tered mortuaries at 121 worksites
with 864 funeral service employ-
ees. That represents a combined
gross annual payroll of $32.9 mil-
lion, which is approximately one
third of the total industry payroll
in New Jersey.
sponses will be provided,
keeping the results com-
pletely confidential.
“Thanexus has con-
ducted a similar, annu-
al compensation survey
of shareholders for more
than 15 years,” states pres-
ident George R. Kelder
Jr, CFSP. “It made per-
fect sense for us to col-
laborate on this project
with the MFDA. Having
a statewide benchmark of
industry data aids in un-
derstanding current in-
dustry trends and helps
us better serve our mem-
bership. We support the
MFDA’s efforts to do the
same for itself.”
In an announcement to
its membership, MFDA
president Courtney A.
Fitzgibbons stated “…
we have selected Thanex-
us, Inc. due to their out-
standing reputation as
the nation’s first and
only funeral service prac-
tice management coop-
erative.” She goes on to
add, “We have high con-
fidence in the integrity,
professionalism and ex-
pertise of Thanexus to
manage this project for
our members.”
The importance of this
survey is two-fold. First,
it will allow the MFDA
to provide a baseline sal-
ary profile for industry
professionals in the state,
based on actual data.
Presently, the only cur-
rent salary data is collect-
ed nationally and report-
ed on a regional basis.
Second, it will allow
member funeral homes
to use the data to better
assess the various busi-
ness and human resource
costs that surround the
management of a funeral
home in the state of Mas-
sachusetts.
MFDA executive di-
rector Margaret M. No-
lan shared that “one of
the most frequent ques-
tions the MFDA receives
is how to retain loyal em-
ployees and attract li-
censed new hires.” Due