Fenix Begravningsbyrå: How we train and certify our consultants around the country with digital learning

Fenix ​​Begravningbyrå ​, a Swedish Funeral Parlour, was founded by three people in 2014, Charlotte Runius, Johannes Ekblad and Mikael Novak. They had all seen how the Swedish funeral industry was very complicated, had high prices and a great lack of transparency and customer focus. Since the start, the employees at Fenix ​​have worked hard to create a fairer alternative for those who have to bury a relative, where the customer is in focus and the services are completely adapted as needed

Fenix ​​has invested heavily in digital learning in recent years and achieved great success. We talked to the driving force behind the initiative, their Education Manager, Claudiu Moldovan.

Tell us about yourself Claudiu! What is your role and what does it mean?

– My name is Claudiu Moldovan and I have been responsible for training at Fenix ​​Begravningsbyrå for about two years now. My main responsibility is to train and certify all of our freelance funeral counselors around the country. We cover about 60 % of Sweden right now. Previously, almost all employees were located at the head office. That meant we couldn't be in all places. To change that, we started recruiting part time funeral counselors around Sweden who could be local faces of Fenix. They all need to be trained and certified to be able to do their jobs well, so a large part of my job is about certifying and authorizing our consultants.

Good digital learning is like dating. You don't want to be asked if you want to get married on a first date.

What's most fun about your job?

– The people. All the life stories. You often have a genuine reason to apply for a position at Fenix ​​Begravningsbyrå. It is also exciting to be a part of making something esoteric into something very concrete. And to work with learning that can be constantly developed and become even better.

What can be challenging?

– It is not always easy to create learning that suits everyone. You need to constantly adjust. The ones you train are of different ages and have different backgrounds. Some are more technical than others. Some have attended similar courses before, others haven't.

Who do you need to pass on knowledge to and why?

– Primarily the funeral counselors. But now it is also used for a lot of internal education, such as law. The sales department also has its courses, and so on.

We see that since we started with blended learning, the quality of the work the advisers perform has increased significantly.

Why did you choose to work with Learnifier to support your digital learning?

– Learnifier is very easy to use. It was good to get a test period, try to build courses and understand yourself. And it went very fast. Without any experience in creating courses and trainings, you can start building!

How did you create the courses? Did you use external help or did you do everything yourselves?

– We have created all the content ourselves but took the help of a film expert to create the films in the course. We have filmed five different consultants from different places and recorded different elements they need to master, situations they encounter.

More concretely, how do you work with digital learning?

– Our programs for the counselors are 12 weeks long and so far we have trained 11 groups. At first a lot happened in-house, we met on site. When the pandemic came we switched to having many live online activities instead. At one point, we had about 15 live webinars per month. But then we started automating more and more.

We posted content in the learning portal where we recorded various videos, among other things. We also posted our recorded webinars there. We still have live online sessions, only fewer. And now the participants prepare prior to the meetings. This has saved a lot of time and made the live sessions even more engaging.

What we usually do with our digital learning is to "flip the pipeline", which means we start with short, small modules and a few activities to get the participants going and then we deepen along the journey. That way they get a momentum to continue and then we can have more comprehensive content later on.

Digital learning is like going on a date, you don't want to be asked if you want to get married on the first date. One thing we do differently, which I recommend, is that we send out physical diplomas to our course participants. This has been extremely appreciated. Now that the pandemic is coming to an end, we don't want to lose physical contact entirely. We will move forward mixed, but definitely continue with digital learning.

What was your biggest aha moment when you started with digital learning?

– I realized that on-demand learning is very valuable – I thought it would be the other way around, a less good alternative. But everyone saves a lot of time and can learn when, where and how it suits them best.

What do the participants say and what have the results been so far?

– We get very high grades on our courses. We also see that since we started with blended learning, the quality of the work the funeral counselors perform has increased significantly. This is fun, because even if you have the best course in the world, it doesn't automatically mean that it leads to application.

Any tips for others who want to start with or improve their digital learning journeys?

- Try to involve all the senses in the courses, as people are different. Text. Pictures. Quizes. Videos. Sound, etc.

Feel free to strengthen the courses with external trainers who can contribute with other perspectives. We arrange, for example, Super Sunday with different speakers. We record this and then upload in Learnifier. This includes topics from practical tips to learning about relationships / solutions / sales / law, personal branding etc. I also highly recommend having a clear "learning pipeline". The structure of the whole process: Before – during – after.

What is the dream scenario in a year?

– Then we duplicate and improve what we have done with existing courses.
We are also developing more.