An unexpected death can take an emotional and mental toll on anyone, including your employees. All managers may spot grief in their employees at some point. In fact, about 57% of Americans report experiencing grief for the loss of someone close to them within the last three years of the survey (note: the survey was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic).
With roughly 1 out of every 2 people suffering from grief, how can you help your employee cope with their loss? Is there anything that management can do to make things easier for those dealing with grief? This guide is intended to help managers and management teams understand how to help employees cope with their grief.
Grieving At Work
While we would expect that a lot of grieving would take place while a person is on compassionate leave, the fact is that grief isn’t a neat and simple process. While an employee is away after a death, they’ll often be focused on arranging the funeral and putting the deceased’s affairs in order. As such, that gives them some distance from how they’re feeling. In fact, they often won’t start to really start grieving until they come back to work.
As a manager, it’s important to remember that grieving is very much a full-time job. Your employee will be doing their best, and may welcome work as a distraction, but grief can often be overwhelming. It can impact their motivation levels and make it harder for them to get through the day.
If you know someone on your team is grieving, make sure that you have this in mind when you’re working with them.
Give Them Time to Grieve
First and foremost, grief is a touchy subject in and of itself. When someone dies, their friends and family members often enter a state of shock and despair. It’s only natural for someone to feel such huge feelings, because they might have known the deceased for a very long time. Plus, a few days off is simply not enough to get through such emotions, let alone plan a memorial service for the deceased.
Therefore, it’s important for management to give employees as much time as they need whenever they experience the loss of a loved one. Whether or not they come back to work is up to them.
Manage Your Expectations
As the manager, you will typically have certain expectations of your team. When your grieving team member comes back to work though, you will need to manage those expectations. As mentioned above, they are going to be working while still going through a lot of emotional turmoil. Even if the employee is doing their best, they will be working with that added weight on them.
It’s a good idea to talk to that employee and ask how you can best support them during this time. Remember that the grieving process won’t last forever, so even if they’re not as productive right now, they will be able to cope more with their loss with your support.
Allow Them to Be Honest
When someone goes back to work after experiencing the loss of a loved one, you’ll see that they often try to hide how they’re feeling. They might feel that they must “get back to normal”, which can include returning to work even if they are not quite ready.
Let your employee know that they can be honest about how they’re feeling. When they can do that, they’ll be able to go through the process of grieving more easily. Allow them to take the time to grieve and feel those feelings fully.
Respect Their Privacy
Whether an employee asks you to pass along information regarding their loss or not is entirely up to them. With that said, it’s not moral to force them to say something about their situation.
Instead, respect the privacy of the grieving. Have everyone else in your company respect that privacy as well. This includes honoring their wishes related to how coworkers share their condolences with the employee. The important thing here is to respect the employee’s privacy, and to share only what they request.
Educate Yourself
Grief can take on a lot of forms. While most companies offer bereavement leave for close family deaths, it might not be enough. Additionally, while some companies offer structural support in place for when an employee experiences grief, that also still might not be enough.
Therefore, it’s important for you – management – to educate yourself about grief. Don’t just offer training to your employees; have this training for management as well. These trainings should be effective in having better conversations with employees, when it comes to handling grief.
This article, 8 Ways to Support Grieving Employees, offers some initial tips for you and your management team.
Be Available
In addition, being available is just as important, when it comes to having a grieving employee. Whether they ask for help or not, you must still be available for whatever they need. Whether you know this employee on a personal level, or only have a professional acquaintance with them, let them know that you’re there for them whenever they need someone to talk to or if they need additional support.
Helping Your Employees with Grief in the Workplace
It’s important for management to know their employees in not just a professional, but also in a personal way. Having a place for employees to grieve when they want to can help to lessen the burden that they might be facing during these hard times.
Jenny Han is a writer and editor at Best Essay Writing Service. As a content writer, she writes articles about psychology, human resources, and lifestyle trends.
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