Stewart Enterprises Reviews

Pros

- the people are pretty decent
- casual and relaxed work environment
- flexible schedule
- after Katrina, company paid salaries of displaced employees for a full month
- great opportunities for training, conferences

Cons

- favoritism in regards to promotions and salaries
- gross inequities in salaries paid for similar positions
- newer employees paid market whilst existing employees stuck at the salaries they were hired in under
- some members of senior management grossly unqualified, cogs in the wheel, detrimental to progress

Advice to Senior Management

Pay people what they are worth. Several long-standing employees have left the Information Systems department at corporate over the past few years because management refuses to promote or pay fairly-these are people who were invested in Stewart and wanted to stay, wanted to see Stewart succeed-Stewart let them walk out the door and then hired in people with less experience and knowledge of the company at significantly higher rates. The employees know more about each others salaries than you think....

Pros

Helping people at worst time of their lives feels rewarding. Paid company training 2-4 weeks. Inside or Outside sales positions available

Cons

Turnover: surprisingly HIGH, from people quitting or being fired

Workload/Compensation: This is not a pure sales position, there is a lot of administrative work daily that often takes away from sales prospecting time

Compensation structure: review carefully, ask other employees, not management, for their experience

Teams: Each team has a team lead, just hope you are paired with a team lead who knows how to lead and cares about your success because if you are not, the road will be longer and harder

Recommend: I would not recommend this position if this is your only job or if you are looking for sales experience or if you are the only person earning an income in your family

Advice to Senior Management

There is a reason for such high turnover, instead of hiring more people as people quit and get fired, investigate why, stabilize the environment which will help everyone and even the company be more successful

Pros

1. Great training program. Two weeks all expense paid training in Orlando with seasoned professionals.

2. Job is varied. Some days outside in the cemetery on a golf cart, other days inside the funeral home or at a home appointment. Every day is different, with a varied pace and duties. Great for someone who doesn’t want the typical 9 – 5 office job.

3. The industry is very different and unique. It has unusual rewards and challenges. Since working in death care does not appeal to everyone there is less job competition.

4. You have an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life during a particularly difficult time.

5.There is something compelling about the business. The old world tradition, the slower pace, the order, beauty, permanence and history a cemetery affords. No ringing phones and tons of computers. The industry harkens back to another time when things were slower.

6. Flexible schedule. If you have an appointment in the morning or need a weekday off, this can be managed.

Cons

1.Extremely competitive business. While timing is everything in most sales jobs in the death care industry this is particularly true. If two people are on duty in a funeral home and you have a family come in that needs help finding a gravesite in order to place flowers, while you’re doing that an at need family walks in who experienced a death and wants to purchase cemetery property for not only the deceased but plots for all other family members, you may have missed out on a $70,000 sale by minutes. Your “friend” is writing big business while you’re helping someone find a grave. This may sound crass but when you’re on a draw against commission and money is tight, this makes for tension.

2. Even though you can take time off you rarely ever really get a full day off. There’s always a meeting or a death or something that comes up leading to lots of partial days off but no real time away. Also, paperwork is a nightmare. It’s done by hand, is intense, and if you make a mistake you must do everything all over again – sometimes in front of a grieving family!

3. To be really successful one has to be very well connected to the local community. Say, for example, a former realtor. Always on the cell phone, always networking ,always making calls. You are on 24/7. If you don’t know lots of (financially well off) people, you are left with cold calling and knocking on doors, talking about death – a subject they did not ask you to speak to them about. The average person (slob) doesn’t have a chance making a living in this industry. If you don’t make your sales quota you lose your duty days (which are your “acchor” because they at least provide you with some possible business and some sort of framework in which to structure your day. Without them you are left to your own devices, to die on the vine. How does one carve out a day for themselves talking about death? Even the successful well connected people eventually run out of friends and fizzle out.

4.Note to management: Enough with the revolving door! Stop looking for the next big “sales stud” to walk thru the door because even the gung ho big talkers fizzle out. Pay a real salary and don’t promote every task you must do for a client as a “sales opportunity” The vault is dusty, someone complains. They’re standing there grieving and mad and I’m supposed to turn this into a sales opportunity? Get real. Start to care about your people. Enough with the draw. Everyone who works for you works too hard to owe the company money!

5. Fiinally, address the major issues the industry is facing:

ECONOMY – most people no longer have the money to spend on caskets, crypts, vaults. Most people are just trying to save their money o they can live! People are largely turning to cremation (at one time frowned upon) these days because it is often so much cheaper!

RELIGIOUS MORES: religions have lightened up on the pomp and circumstance and dogma. More people these days are “Spritiual” than “Religious”. Therefore people are buying fewer expensive crypts, caskets, vaults, etc.

MOBILITY: Families no longer all live in the same town as they used to. The days of everyone visiting the cemetery are long gone. Many people have no idea where they will live in 10 or 20 years – or even 5, these days. With families spread out, things change and people may move away to be closer to a loved one in their old age. People today are overall, much less traditional than they were even 15 years ago. This not only applies to younger people but also to the elderly, who once frowned against cremation. Today many embrace it.

Advice to Senior Management

Like I said, enough with the reloving door. Quit kidding yourselves. Address the changes the industry is facing.

Pros

They do pay on time and do not make mistakes with paychecks. The people I work with are great. Aside from management.

Cons

With the flick of a switch (or change in management), your working environment can do a complete 180. No loyalty to employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure your location managers are competent. This is a serious business and it takes time to develop a staff that can meet and even exceed a customers expectations. Make sure who your hiring is actually good and not just a position filler. It only takes one idiot to steer a ship off course.

Pros

Death Industry. Caring for those at time of need. Helping those with grief. Helping them to preplan for their needs in the future

Cons

Pay rates are very low for the amount of work they demand. More work, less increases. No rewards or benefits for all you do.

Advice to Senior Management

Putting more empasis on what employees do and less on stupid rejections and kickbacks that are so unnecessary in some situations. They only make top employess angry. You say we are doing such a great job and then kickbacks that are not necessary.

Pros

The only thing decent about this company is the pay.

Cons

Treatment of all employees and customers.

Pros

The Health Care package is Great. If you work as a sales counselor expect to work holidays and week ends for free.You only get leads ,you have to work for yourself. vacation and Holiday pay are non-existent.Three months of training after that you are expected to deliver, sell funeral properties and funeral contracts. You are commission based only.Once your Bucket gets to be $3000 ,you are out of rotation and you have to seek your own clients.

Cons

You can come and go as you please ,since you do not get a pay check from the company

Advice to Senior Management

The company is ok but the only thing the management is interested in is their bottom line- pure and simple. The clients are the least of their problem, the bonus is all they are interested in.Treat employees like people and you will get good rewards because they will be happy to perform .

Pros

Everyone from the grounds crew to local management make a genuine effort for clients. Clients are appreciative.

Cons

Technology is out of the 1960's, family service counselor turnover is well over 200% per year. The average counselor dealing with "at need"(recent death) families probably has less than 5 months on the job. Most are caring and conscientious but lack the knowledge and experience to do the job as well as the client deserves. The counselor is paid only on new sales and is paid nothing for meeting with families, collecting "opening and closing" or attending the service. All customer service and processing complaints is at no pay but considered a "sales opportunity." Sales counselors must keep copies of all paperwork because admin frequently looses things and it is easier to ask sales for copies than search. Sales is 100% commission so isn't paid unless the transaction is concluded. It's cheaper for the company to put this burden on sales than increase admin staff. Admin knows most new counselors won't last more than a few months. No one seems to calculate or consider the burden of this turnover on the bottom line or the client.

Advice to Senior Management

You have better employees than you deserve. Listen in on the long winded, frequently pointless meetings your sales directors inflict on counselors and calculate the value versus the time as well as the impact of the message "I'm a clueless relic but can wast your time or fire you at will." I've never seen or heard of a Sales Director taking someone prospecting or hands on teaching anything talked about in the meetings.

Pros

On nice days, it was enjoyable to drive the golf carts around the cemeteries.

Cons

The job is basically about selling preplanned funeral services to older people on fixed incomes or upselling to grieving family members when they come in to make funeral arrangements for a loved one who has just passed.

Advice to Senior Management

It would be nice if the official corporate spiel about caring for families in their time of need actually had any relevance outside of the training environment.

Pros

Nice people to work with. Can make good money.

Cons

Bad schedule ( including weekends, holidays, etc.)
No salary although all you do is deal with customer complaints.
Too competitive

Advice to Senior Management

Pay sales counselors a decent salary!! We are doing customer service all day!! You expect us to live with 2 weeks of terrible training??? If we don't meet our quota of $35,000 in our first quarter we get fired?? This company needs somebody to do a consulting project on it. It is not all about selling and making money, employees need to be secure and happy with their jobs in order to provide excellent customer service and sell! The employee turnover in this company is ridiculously high compared to what it should be! In addition, there are people that have been here for 20 years and are still in the same position as when they started and are still only receiving a draw against commission! This is the worst place to work. I can't wait until I can find ANYTHING else.