How Loss and Grief Affect the Workplace

A loss of a loved one or someone important in one’s life is never easy, as loss comes with pain, trauma, and heartbreak. Experience grief is a natural response to loss, and it brings up a range of overwhelming emotions and feelings. Moreover, the great challenge of coping with grief comes with many stages that require those dealing with grief and those surrounding that individual to have patience, empathy and understanding.??

Grief and Mental Health

The stages of grief include shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A person going through these stages with an overwhelming amount of emotions can often face mental health issues as a result. Moreover, individuals may experience these stages in different orders and different intensities.?

Some symptoms of grief that affect one’s mental health include guilt, anger, despair, sadness, hopelessness, and fear. Additionally, these symptoms can become more severe and manifest in the form of panic attacks, chronic stress and insomnia. These symptoms can then go on to affect different areas of the grieving individual's life, one being their career and work life, for either a short or long period of time.?

How Grief Affects The Workplace

In the workplace, grief and loss can have a significant impact on employees and on the efficiency of the company as a whole. Employees grieving the loss of loved ones may deal with decreased productivity and efficiency in their daily tasks and projects and may have a hard time communicating with colleagues and making timely decisions as a result of neglecting their responsibilities. Some additional symptoms of grief in the workplace are a lack of concentration, a lack of motivation, low energy levels, and being forgetful and confused.?

Addressing Grief at a Workplace

Lend a listening Ear:?

If an individual is dealing with a grieving coworker, it is essential to remember that while grief is not a problem that can be solved within a day or a week, it is always helpful to show empathy and lend a listening ear. At a workplace, employees can show support to someone who is grieving by being present and encouraging the grieving employee to speak about their loved one or their grief. In the case where employees are all grieving the loss of a coworker, it could be very helpful to have a memorial board with pictures and cards and create a time and space to talk about the coworker and their unique relationships with the deceased.?

?Offer Help:

When an employee is dealing with the loss of a loved one, their mental health is affected. As a result, it can be difficult to keep up with tasks, projects, and daily decision-making processes throughout the grieving process. During this time, coworkers and managers can offer to take up some of the workload for a short period of time as a way to show support and allow the grieving individual to slowly get back to a healthy mental state and continue working.?

Alert Employers or Supervisors:

While it is important to show support by offering help and listening to employees or coworkers who are grieving, it is also crucial to observe whether the grieving person is improving or getting worse, in terms of mental well-being. If the individual is showing signs of severe mental health issues, speaks about self-harm or suicide, or seems to become physically ill as a result, action must be taken. In the case that the employee’s mental state is worsening, it is important to alert supervisors so that immediate action can be taken to provide help or counselling services for the individual.??