The future of Dignity

What is your history in the industry? My first job in the sector was as an administration assistant at Dudley MBC in bereavement services 15 years ago. There was a really special moment on my first day - I overheard a colleague supporting a family after they found the teddy bears they had placed on the grave of their baby were missing. It was so moving and inspiring to hear how my colleague supported and communicated with the family. I’d say this is the moment I realised that helping bereaved families is absolutely what I want to do in life. A few years later, I applied to be a crematorium manager at Telford Crematorium and this was my first job with Dignity. My career developed pretty quickly from this point! I became a memorial business development manager, visiting Dignity’s sites and meeting and supporting colleagues in various operational projects, before being promoted to a regional manager in 2015, where I was responsible for the memorial business and around six large operational cemeteries and crematoria sites in London. In the same year, I obtained a diploma from Stratford Business School in Cemetery and Crematorium Management. I’ve also completed an MBA which took me to New York, Milan, and London and my dissertation was based on how organisations can support the bereaved. In 2019, I moved to Westerleigh Group as commercial and operations director, but my passion for Dignity and our people drew me back to the business last year as chief operating officer, before being appointed chief executive last month. Why did you previously leave Dignity, and why do you feel now is the right time to come back? I moved to the Westerleigh Group into a more senior role as commercial and operations director, which was a great development opportunity. I gained invaluable experience in a different operating environment, but had always hoped to return to Dignity one day. When I found out more about Dignity’s new strategy, direction and focus on putting our front-line colleagues – alongside our clients - at the heart of our decision making, it was too compelling to not come back. Our people have always been really special to me. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved in my first year back with Dignity. From our restructure and strategy focussed on turning the business on its head, through better support, greater investment, and true empowerment of our people, to our preparation work ready for incoming regulation. I’m really looking forward to continuing to embed and live our principles and our strategy over the coming months and years. What do you personally hope to achieve in your new role as CEO? I want to make sure we have the right culture in place – empowered people that are driven and inspired by our social purpose, and this is embedded in our new principles which we launched earlier this year. These principles are crucial to creating an environment where our colleagues feel truly proud to be part of Dignity in an environment where they can grow and share ideas. It’s also essential for us to live and breathe our principles to enhance our reputation that clients trust, and for our partners to feel inspired to work with us. I’m excited to bring a fresh perspective as we continue to deliver our new strategy during a period of structural, regulatory and societal change. My long-term aim is to build a strong and enduring business, but I’m also passionate about shaping a new organisational culture within what is a fairly traditional industry. What responsibilities does the role include? One of my core responsibilities will be to achieve our vision to be the UK’s leading end-of-life service provider that delivers the very best service to our clients. This means building and embedding our new strategy and principles. We’ve created 12 regions across the UK, and we’re replacing the management hierarchy and working towards understanding local needs in local communities and empowering our colleagues on the front line. I also want to create an environment where our colleagues can grow, are supported to be their best and to learn from each other. Why do you see this as a ‘crucial’ time for the business? The pandemic highlighted the importance of the sector and the work that we do for communities. It raised awareness of the individuals who dedicate their lives to the funeral sector, and they’re now being recognised alongside key workers. The sector is undergoing huge regulatory changes, and Dignity has been central to raising quality and standards in the sector for a number of years. A lot of work has gone into delivering our FCA regulatory programme, and we continue to work with the CMA, as we have done throughout the market investigation process, to deliver better outcomes for our clients and consumers. We’ve also experienced a period of significant leadership change, but now have the opportunity to create a strong and stable business that is shaped around serving bereaved families, high standards and delivering customer excellence. What is Dignity’s new crematorium and funeral strategy? At the heart of our organisation is a core purpose to help people say goodbye, to remember and to celebrate the life of those they’ve lost as well as plan ahead for their own funeral, so that their wishes are clearly articulated, with peace of mind that the costs are covered rather than falling to loved ones. We’re rolling out our new strategy and integrating our services so that we’ll have funeral operations, crematoria and funeral plans working together and no longer in silos. We want Dignity to be a confederation of strong local businesses, with local people who know their area the best serving their communities, supported by our central service teams that help enable a consistent through a national approach, sharing of learnings and resources and. Our goal is also to create excellent long-term value for our shareholders, and we’ll ensure that we allocate capital wisely, organise ourselves prudently, spend money frugally and report openly and honestly. What further changes would you like to see? What are Dignity’s future development projects? My immediate priority is developing our culture at Dignity while keeping our colleagues and clients at heart. We’re aiming to be a learning organisation, and we want to continuously learn from our experiences, especially by learning from our failures. We also want to work as one Dignity, harnessing the local insight and experience our front line colleagues can provide to offer our clients a tailored, more seamless service. We also want to protect our planet, and this is one of our new principles. We’re making a big commitment to be a greener Dignity, and I’m focused on delivering this as it’s important for the sector but also the communities we serve. We’re also committed to ensuring that Dignity is a more diverse and inclusive company than it already is. We’re also currently working on developing a market leading funeral plan product which we’ll be launching very soon – so watch this space! What organisational changes, and regulation and operational efficiencies is the company attempting to drive? We were already focused on providing consumer choice and transparency and the CMA investigation was the catalyst to further accelerate change not only at Dignity but across the sector as a whole. Since CMA regulation came into play, we’ve had full transparency of prices on our websites following CMA recommendations. We’ve innovated and made the customer experience as informed as possible. In regards to the incoming FCA regulation, we’ve already moved away from a corporate distribution model to a more direct model, making the delivery in line with FCA regulation. We’ve completely changed our sales and business strategy whilst creating one of the most, if not the most, innovative product offers on the market and we’re very excited about this. I’m also really proud of our support for Safe Hands customers as we’re ensuring that anyone who passes away in the next six months receives a funeral without an extra charge, and we’re looking at if and how we could go further with support. Where would you like to see Dignity in the next five years? We want to be the UK’s leading provider of end-of-life services. We know we need to invest in Dignity, bringing our property portfolio up to scratch, taking better care of our facilities and improved aesthetics. We also need to invest in our people as well, as we move away from management hierarchy and work towards understanding local needs in local communities. We’ll also be reviewing and re-focusing our centralised support functions. I’m proud to be a young female on the board and we’re committed to diversity and inclusion. I’m looking forward to sharing our progress in the years ahead.

The future of Dignity

Dignity plc’s newly appointed CEO, Kate Davidson, discusses what inspired her return to the company, changes Dignity has undergone, and what the future of the business looks like.

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