How countless organizations are missing the mark when supporting grieving employees

On Aug. 22, Tennille Albertson got a phone call that changed her life forever, shortly after leaving a school event she had attended with her daughter. Her partner had died by suicide.

In the midst of her shock and trying to process this news, Albertson realized she would need to contact her employer and explain what had happened, as they would be expecting her at work the next day.

“Because of the stigma behind suicide, I was not sure how to even tell my supervisor that this death carried so much more emotion, not just ‘he died,’” said Albertson, who lives in North Dakota. “I was grappling with the death, supporting my daughter, and still trying to figure out work.”

This is an unfortunate reality for many who find themselves faced with the death of a loved one: While their world suddenly stops, the world around them — including responsibilities such as work — seems to keep moving as they struggle to keep up and juggle the mental, emotional and logistical load of both their grief and their job.

The next morning, Albertson called her supervisor and was told to take as much time as she needed. She returned to work the following day, but says she struggled and decided to take the rest of the week off. As far as bereavement leave, however, it was never offered and she didn’t ask because she and her partner were not married, so she assumed it wouldn’t be granted.

Nick Charyk, an employee of FreshAir Sensor in Lebanon, NH, had an entirely different experience.

In January of this year while at work, Charyk received a phone call he had been dreading: His foster brother, who had a long history of struggles with addiction, had relapsed and fatally overdosed. He was in a meeting with senior leadership when the call came in, and the company’s president sent him home and made it clear that he should take the time he needed.

In the weeks that followed, Charyk says he was able to take time away from work as needed for his brother’s wake, memorial service and other family obligations.

“I felt completely supported and allowed to grieve without worry or additional stress,” he said. “In my two years at FreshAir, I have also experienced several other losses that led to me utilizing bereavement leave. Each time, I have felt the same compassionate support from our company leadership.”

According to a 2018 report from the Society for Human Resource Management, 88% of businesses offer paid bereavement leave, but typically only three to five days. There are no federal laws requiring employers to provide workers with time off, whether paid or unpaid, following the death of a loved one. The only U.S. state currently requiring this is Oregon, as a result of legislation passed in 2014.

While Albertson has been able to take time off as needed, she has had to use earned sick time in order to do so. She says her supervisor hasn’t checked in with her since her late partner’s celebration of life service, and she doesn’t feel comfortable or supported talking about how grief is affecting her at work on particularly difficult days.

Jack O’Toole, founder and president of FreshAir Sensor, says the company made the decision early on to offer unlimited bereavement leave when an employee unexpectedly lost his father.

“Both he and his mother were totally surprised, and there were a lot of details that needed to be dealt with,” O’Toole said. “As a team, we felt that it was important for him to have the space to deal with those issues and process his father’s death. We allowed him as much time as he needed. We decided that our policies should reflect that support for all of our team members.”

Bloomwell Partners —based in Delaware and founded by Mekel Harris and Janet Gwilliam-Wright — not only teaches organizations how to build compassionate, grief-informed cultures, but also trains managers and HR professionals to support employees navigating grief and loss. Their mission is to help organizations skillfully address grief and loss through both evidence-based and innovative approaches.

According to Bloomwell, the economic impact of grief and loss is hardly negligible. U.S.-based companies lose $75 billion to $100 billion each year due to lack of skill and knowledge about how to manage grief and loss in the workplace.

Gwilliam-Wright and Harris came to this work in part as a result of their own experiences with loss and grief, both in general and in the workplace.

“I think the biggest thing that I want managers and leaders to know is that grief is something that you carry with you for your entire life,” Gwilliam-Wright said. “It doesn’t go away. We have this very linear view of grief … that grief is time-limited, that we should ‘get over it’ in a certain amount of time, and that we leave our grief at the door when we come to work.”

Harris added that because employment rights are written so broadly and employers have the right to offer “reasonable accommodations” without any specificity around what that looks like, what is considered reasonable is subjective and is ultimately left up to employers to determine.

“This is not just a phenomenon in the United States,” she said. “It is sort of a global issue, and I think that the wording of it all really makes it difficult for an employee to exercise their rights within the workplace. We are, through Bloomwell, wanting to have conversations with leaders and managers about restructuring policy to address the uniqueness of grief and how reasonable accommodations really need to be discussed and fleshed out in a much more clear way.”

Crystal Dalton of Delaware was confronted with the agonizing decision in the fall of 2021 to remove her mother from life support after she had fallen and hit her head, resulting in a massive brain bleed which rendered her unresponsive.

“Whether death is sudden or comes at the end of a long illness, it’s still a shock to the system,” Dalton said. “It is overwhelming in every sense of the word … I woke up crying, cried a good part of the day, and then cried myself to sleep. How could I show up to work and function when I barely had enough energy to be awake?”

Dalton’s employer offered three days of bereavement leave. Her supervisor allowed her to take two weeks, but, like Albertson, she had to use paid time off. “There is no way to put a time frame on grief,” Albertson said. “Check in on your employees. Ask them how you can support them. Just because the funeral or celebration of life has happened, doesn’t mean that life goes back to normal.”

Julia Morin is a writer and a grief specialist, educator and advocate residing in New Hampshire.

U.S.-based companies lose $75 billion to $100 billion each year due to lack of skill and knowledge about how to manage grief and loss in the workplace.