Beyond Policies: Why Companies Must Do Better for Grieving Employees

(Main image: The author,Jane Roques-Shaw, and her late husband Seb)

Knock knock knock. I open the front door and there stand two police officers, like a scene out of the British crime series, Happy Valley.

I invite them in, knowing why they are there but still with a small amount of hope that I’m wrong. As soon as they start with “I’m sorry to inform you….”, everything becomes a blur.

This is how I found out my 46-year-old husband Seb had died of a heart attack in January 2023. Without doubt, the worst day of my life.

No one likes to talk about death. It’s not exactly a jolly topic of conversation for anyone. And many companies handle the reality of death and grief poorly and awkwardly.

Death makes people uncomfortable which is why, with the best intentions, people have a tendency to use terrible euphemisms like “he’s gone to a better place”, “everything happens for a reason” and “you’ll meet someone else” (never say any of these things to people grieving!) or they say nothing at all. It’s a minefield that I never fully appreciated until I had to experience it myself.

Everyone experiences someone they know dying—and grief is a key life moment most people have the unfortunate experience of having to go through. But what about grief in the workplace? When a colleague loses their partner or child, what can organizations—particularly HR and Internal Comms—do to help and give them support when they need it most?

A year and eight months on from Seb’s death, I have spoken at length to countless other people who have lost loved ones and it’s quite obvious that companies need to take a better approach to employee bereavement.

Seb and Jane (Picture: Steve Collins Photography)

I was fortunate to have had an amazing boss at Dentsu who—when I told her what had happened—was incredibly supportive. She went: “whatever you need, whatever you want, take the time that you need, don’t be rushing back to work.” That just took a massive weight off my shoulders.

So, what can companies do to support colleagues going through the trauma of bereavement? Having a bereavement policy and an Employee Assistance Program (that actually offers grief counseling) in place should be a given. What companies need to do better at is creating an open conversation for employees.

That openness and flexibility I had with my boss was just huge for me and I’m not sure that everybody is fortunate enough to get that. I’ve certainly heard from people that they haven’t had it—some people have gone back to work after three days, and I can’t begin to imagine what I would have been like if I’d done that.

Companies need to improve how they react to and assist employees in dealing with a bereavement—and need to be more aware that the impact of grief on the body and mind can be significant.

Physically, the grieving process can cause everything from bodily pain and muscle tension. I would wake in the morning and literally have to unpeel my body as I’d stiffened up so much during the night and would have regular chest pains where I thought I was having a heart attack myself. The pharmacist informed me my heart was literally breaking from the grief.

The immune system can become much weaker so you can be susceptible to getting sick and the fatigue can be overwhelming. I felt permanently exhausted and really struggled to focus for even short periods of time, even when I was managing to sleep with the help of sleeping tablets.

The brain fog has been a huge struggle. Even 18 months in, my memory is terrible and I’ve even had issues with my eyesight, as the crying caused my tear ducts to block.

I suffered from regular migraines which completely wiped me out, and I totally lost my appetite in those early months. I couldn’t even think about food and those around me had to make sure I was eating enough.

On top of that, the grieving person might be having to deal with all the “sadmin” (admin tasks related to death) surrounding someone’s death. Just in the first four weeks I had to deal with the police, the coroner, the registrar, the funeral director, the celebrant, the wake which means dealing with venue managers, caterers, invites and then having to tell friends, family, neighbors multiple times a day what had happened.

In addition, you might be dealing with multiple banks, insurance companies, pensions, debt collectors, government organizations, probate, car leases, tax, employers, utility companies for up to a year—the list can feel endless. It can be truly overwhelming.

All these physical and mental effects and practical obligations can have a huge impact on how a grieving person shows up at work. And this is where organizations can and should have more consideration.

Because of the work I do, leading employee experience globally for the business, I felt I had some influence on how other people in our company might experience bereavement. So, together with my team, including another colleague who had lost both parents last year, we have been focusing on those life moments that can really impact someone in their work on a day-to-day basis: becoming a parent, or becoming a carer, going through fertility, and bereavement.

We took the time to run employee journey mapping sessions with some of our employees to really understand their lived experience in the workplace in relation to that particular life moment.

For bereavement, we discussed questions like: “How did it feel when you had to tell your boss?”, “How did it feel when you had to notify your colleagues?”...”How did it feel when you had to take that time off and when you had to come back into the workplace?” “What went well, what didn’t go well, and what could have been done better.”

We did this because we wanted to go beyond the tick-box of policies and procedures. I feel that if companies come at this with more empathy and understanding of what that experience might be like for somebody, and be a bit more human in how we interact with them, then that will make a massive difference into how they settle back into the workplace.

My top tips for organizations and managers dealing with some grieving would be:

• Make your bereavement policies and employee assistance program (if you have one) information easily accessible, and very clear. Ambiguity around how much time a colleague can take off is stressful for them—try to be flexible, but at least have a policy in place.
• Support managers and colleagues of the bereaved person by giving them access to in-the-moment resources that provide guidance on how to support someone who is grieving. Don’t just run random training programs that they might forget once the situation actually arises.
• Communicate! Show kindness and empathy for their situation without using euphemisms. A simple “I’m sorry for your loss” or “I’m thinking about you” goes a long way. It often felt like an overwhelming question when someone asked, “how are you?” Where do you even start with answering that question? I found it helpful when people asked, “how are you today?” which felt much more manageable to respond to. I found it most odd when people didn’t mention it at all, but I also totally understand that people struggle to know what to say. Saying nothing at all likely isn’t the best way to go. Some people like to talk (like me), and some prefer complete privacy. Ask them to share their preferences rather than making assumptions.
• Offer to pick up work, take meetings for them or reduce meeting lengths especially when they are struggling to focus, suffering from fatigue or having to manage “‘sadmin”’ which sucks up a lot of time during the day as you’re often having to call multiple organizations. Ask them what might help—for some, work is a good distraction (to a point it was for me) but others may struggle to work at all.
• Understand and remember key dates that may impact them—birthdays, wedding anniversaries, etc. Be conscious that around these dates they may struggle. Not just within the first year, but ongoing.

Grief isn’t linear, it’s a rollercoaster. They may seem to be doing OK one day and really struggling the next. If you get to know your teams, you’ll recognize when their behavior changes and can support in the right way.

Here are some resources I’ve found useful in my personal experience so far:

• As a starting point, this HBR article is worth reading if you want to be a better manager, colleague or friend supporting someone going through grief: When A Colleague is Grieving: How to Provide the Right Kind of Support
• The book It’s OK That You're Not OK (which also includes a section on how friends can support the grieving)
• If you’ve any interest in learning more about how the brain is impacted by grief The Grieving Brain is absolutely worth a read.
• Cruse Bereavement Counselling
• Sue Ryder Bereavement Support. They also offer a Grief Kind volunteer service.