How To Support Employees Experiencing Grief And Loss

You may have employees that have lost loved ones. Compounding the grief, many were not able to attend a funeral or memorial service due to social distancing guidelines. Many people who died of Covid-19 died alone, or with medical staff holding up a phone or tablet so a patient could see their family and friends one last time.

You have families feeling anger and bewilderment, such as the families at Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights, where 98 patients died from Covid-19 within six weeks. You have people that promised their family members that they would never die alone, but at the end of their family members’ lives, it was impossible to fulfill that promise.

People were told by the CDC that masks were not necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, only to have them change course and admit that we should have been wearing masks all along. You have a president and vice-president that have steadfastly refused to wear masks. You have public health becoming politicized instead of people working together towards a common goal of staying healthy.

You have a medical insurance system where people may go into medical debt due to Covid-19 treatment of their loved ones. If a person has short-term medical insurance or medical insurance that is not compliant with the Affordable Care Act, the plan may not cover costs associated with Covid-19 testing.

Your employees that have suffered the loss of a loved one will be experiencing deeper and more complicated grief than you may have seen in the past. It is up to you to create a work environment that supports employees through unfathomable loss.

Allow Your Employees to Feel

Does your company culture allow employees to express feelings of grief in the office? You are going to have employees that will cry during work hours or feel very irritable. Irritability is a part of grief that isn’t talked about as much as sadness or anger. Let your employees feel these feelings without fear of reprisal. Granted, there are limits — employees should excuse themselves if they need some time. If they are having a rough day, let them go home for the rest of the day, with pay. When people are told (or intuit) that they need to hold feelings of grief in, the more those feelings get deeply entrenched. Let your employees be human. Have a room in the office where employees can go if they need time alone.

Give Them Paid Time Off

We are living in extraordinary circumstances, and that calls for extraordinary measures. Measures that really shouldn’t be extraordinary at all. If your employee has had a death in the family, give them paid time off. If you balk at the idea of this beyond just a sense of human decency, consider how much the employee has given to you and the company. Very few states have bereavement leave laws. Step up and do it even when it’s not required.

Accept Lower Productivity

Think back to your deepest grief. Your employees who have lost a family member to Covid-19 are likely feeling deeper grief than that. Don’t expect them to produce as much or as well as they did before the pandemic. And certainly don’t penalize them for a loss of productivity. Your grieving employees’ biggest accomplishment that day is that they arrived at work. Leave it alone.

Provide Mental Health Services

If you don’t participate in an employee assistance program (EAP), get one on board. Provide mental health services to your employees. Many mental health professionals are currently providing services via telehealth. Make counseling freely accessible to your employees, especially those that are experiencing complicated grief. EAP services are usually also available to an employee’s spouse or domestic partner and his or her children. Mental health, especially after a death in the family, is a family issue. The more you support the whole family system’s wellness, the more your employee will be able to work through his or her grief.

It’s easy for you to argue that your company isn’t capable of doing something. But a good leader does the harder work and figures it out.