Loss, privacy, and communication plans
There is a science to communication. Many people are aware of how small changes in how they communicate can have a big impact in how their message is received. Back in school, there was a big difference between a teacher asking you if you wouldn't mind checking in with the office and hearing the school administrator calling for you over the loudspeaker. The former might have put a question in your mind; the latter might have put a pit in your stomach.
If "level 1" of communication is the content (you're needed in the office), the way in which the message is delivered might be considered "level two" (try to wrap those hard messages in a little humanity where you can). But when things happen that impact a team, there's another level: "level 3." This is where you add communication about the communication process itself. And you do that in order to nip any gossip in the bud by letting people know how and when real updates will come to them.
One of the situations where companies could benefit from better "level 3" communications is when keeping teams apprised of what's going on after a teammate is grieving a loss. This is one of those events that's often fraught with uncertainty: will the person be taking a leave? And if so, for how long? How, as a teammate, should I respond so that I don't overstep our professional relationship on the one hand, while respecting the fact that our relationship is something beyond purely professional: after all, thanks to Zoom and social media, I've literally seen their living room and vacation photos and family? Who will be covering their work in the meantime? What's the plan for when they return to work?
I I've spoken with a number of HR people who feel that this situation is impossible to plan for because, amongst other things, everyone's need for privacy is different.
Turns out, it's not impossible—but it does require attending to all 3 levels of communication, which is not something most HR practitioners are trained in.
Which is exactly why we put together Comfort.
Cross pollinating comms & HR expertise
When you apply a what I'm calling "level 3" communications thinking to a loss event, not knowing a person's wishes goes from being a communication killer to something that needs to be communicated itself. Because at level 3, effective communication includes letting people know when there's no actual information to share. Like a pilot who checks in to let you know there's been no update from the tower yet about your flight's delay, checking in with folks reminds them that they're being considered, there is a plan, and you're actively monitoring things.
Without this, people can't tell if you're not updating them because (a) there's no update to be had, or (b) no one's thought to communicate it to them, or (c) no one's paying attention. And if you've hired go-getters, then you're likely to have people who—in the absence of information—will take it upon themselves to go get it.
Here's one potential impact of that: when my daughter died in 2018, I heard from no fewer than 60 people that week, all checking in on me individually. For some people, that itself would have been a major intrusion. I didn't mind, but it did signal to me that no one was coordinating communications at my company, which brought a certain amount of anxiety because I could tell that when I re-entered, people at every meeting would have the same questions. Also, what my team did to support me ended up being so different from what an adjacent team did to support one of its members when he lost a parent that I actually finding myself a little disappointed in how my team showed up for me—which was ridiculous, because everyone was truly great, but as they say, "comparison is the thief of happiness," and while I was grieving, I didn't have the mental fortitude to keep the green-eyed monster fully in check.
Level 3 communications: practical considerations
In any situation, and with grief specifically, HR has at least two practical considerations that make level 3 communications hard: the first is that everyone wants something different—we're all unique snowflakes. The second is that we all have different privacy desires, and those aren't always know at the outset. (The challenge being that if you want privacy, and I start communicating about what happened to you, I've already violated your privacy desires before I even knew what they are.)
Let's take these things one at a time:
Everyone's unique
True, sort of. Yes, people are unique, but we're also not all that different. After all, our differences all exist within our shared human experience. Really, like snowflakes: while no two are the same, they all share certain common traits—so much so that a 2nd grade teacher can give effective instructions on how to create paper versions without getting the details about all the ways they're different.
Same thing here: we can build some effective communication guidelines based on peoples' similarities, while leaving space for those elements that will be unique.
Privacy
In terms of handling privacy, from a comms perspective, I've found at least 4 different ways in which HR uses the term "privacy":
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If we think about this from a level 1 perspective, communication doesn't start until we know which form of privacy we're dealing with, and in at least two of the cases, there'd be no communications at all. But from a level 3 perspective, we can effectively communicate updates to a team without violating a need for privacy:
"They don't want to talk about it."
Some people don't want to talk about their personal life with their work colleagues. In this case, HR can literally let people know that still also communicating information about what happened and arrangements so that people can send condolences, make donations, set up a meal train, etc.
"They don't want people knowing the details."
In this case, HR can send an email to the team letting people know their colleague has lost a loved one but would prefer to keep the details private. This email can include information about plans for work continuity and suggestions for things to say that are supportive while respectful of the person's privacy—all things the team will want to know—along with a suggestion that if they have questions, that they come to HR.
I'm not sure what the person wants shared
Tricky. HR doesn't want to share news out of turn, so... shares nothing. In this situation, the comms approach may be to have HR share that something has happened which may impact the person for a few days, and there will be more information coming within the next 24/48/72 hours, once more is known. That doesn't violate an individual's desire for privacy, but it does give people the information they need to make key decisions and do their jobs effectively.
"I don't want people knowing that anything's happened."
This one's also tricky, but for a different reason. Admittedly, when my daughter was sick, no one knew. I wasn't sure anyone would be too interested in hiring a solo consultant who had an ailing daughter at home. When I joined a company, though, my thinking changed. The company I went to work for was known for being people-first, and I couldn't reconcile joining a culture like that while keeping a secret like that. When Elle died, I was negotiating coming on full time, and felt the right thing to do was to be upfront about what had happened.
Frankly, if you have a people-first culture, then this situation puts you in a bind, as it pits the needs of one against the needs of the team, who have a right to know something since it's a material fact that will likely impact their workload, schedule, deadlines, and possibly their variable comp. For an individual to say they want to keep everything 100% mum may not align with your values or your responsibility to their teammates, and if the first time you're addressing it is while they're grieving, that's... tough.
An alternative approach is to negotiate a statement to the team just letting them know that their colleague will be out for a period of time, which is better than nothing, but not by much. There will be questions and cross-talk in this scenario, and the whole point of level 3 communications is to avoid those.
(Hey, you do the best you can with what you've got, right?)
There's more to communications than sharing a person's wishes
When HR communicates after a loss, you're doing more than communicating a person's wishes to their team. You're also letting everyone else know that HR is the place to go for information. That the company is responding. That there is a plan and someone (you) is in charge of it. That there is a way to bridge the professional/personal gap (where on the one hand, this person is a coworker, while on the other, they're a human being you spend a lot of time with) so that people can show up for each other appropriately.
In short, you're making things safe.
And often times, it's when you don't have anything to share—or know what to share—that you can make the most impactful communications.