The Tobin Brothers Funerals Team

We receive consistent feedback from our clients that our staff are professional, caring and empathetic. We’re often asked where we find these wonderful people and told to “hang onto” them.

“Wonderful people” approach Tobin Brothers Funerals directly through the employment section of our website every single day.  I’m constantly amazed at the high calibre of applicants, who come with a desire to serve their communities.

Tobin Brothers Funerals aims to care for our staff in the same manner that we care for our clients. This, along with the high intrinsic rewards of our roles, means that we do “hang onto” our wonderful staff, many of whom stay 20 or more years, making vacancies in our team extremely rare.

Joining Tobin Brothers Funerals

Our entry level role is as a Casual Funeral Director’s Assistant. On gaining employment our new staff commence with a 7 day induction program.  This program gives our new staff a robust and supported introduction to the Funeral Service Industry.  It encompasses our standards of service and care, occupational health and safety, self care and understanding grief.  This fundamental knowledge is important and means that when new staff do commence in their roles they feel well-equipped to assist our clients.

Training of new staff continues with supervised practice and initial skills are built on with further programs which focus on client service, use of our computer systems (computer literacy is an important skill for all our team) and assisting in our mortuaries.  As staff move into other roles in the Company, such as Funeral Planning, we follow a similar training model, with off the job training, followed by supervised practice and ongoing skills development.

All of our staff regularly attend breakfast training meetings and other training relevant to their roles.  This includes Professional Development through the AFDA (Australian Funeral Director’s Association) and AIE (Australian Institute of Embalming) for our Embalmers, Funeral Planner forums, client focused service and sessions that are specific to new Tobin Brothers service options.

Becoming an Embalmer

We receive regular applications for the role of an embalmer or mortuary assistant.  As a Registered Training Organisation (Funeral Industry Development Australia) we are able to deliver and assess the Certificate IV Embalming Qualification.  Because this qualification requires the completion of a set number of case studies and assignments, a pre-requisite for the course is that students have ongoing access to a mortuary and workplace mentor.  This generally means employment in a Funeral Home.  Students from all over Australia participate in the Embalming course.  Existing Tobin Brothers Staff are offered a scholarship to participate in this course from time to time. These scholarships are keenly sought.

Further information about the embalming qualification can be sought through www.fida.com.au

Written by Wendy Goy - Training and HR Manager, Tobin Brothers Funerals
Photography by Matt Weedon - Creative Communications, Tobin Brothers Funerals