WORKING THROUGH GRIEF

I’ve been writing this article on and off for a few weeks, and with the recent news of the Queen, conversations around death and grief are particularly prevalent. Maybe this is the right time for me to talk more openly about working through grief. Working through it when in the workplace.

Hopefully in some small way these words might help someone struggling, and/or help agencies reflect on how they talk about, and approach grief.

My grief? In December my beloved father died.? Now, I will say at this point that I fully recognise I am not the only person? who a) who has lost a parent b) runs a business, but my god it felt like I was. My question: How has everyone else managed this??

At the point I heard dad had gone downhill with Covid, I was about to board a plane for a work trip to NYC. The final conversation we had was in the queue at the Virgin Atlantic checkin line.? Ironically conversations before boarding a plane always do seem quite final, but this one was.? I didn’t know then, that I would never see or speak to him again. My dad was my business mentor, my guide, my sounding board and most importantly my supporter. That final chat was no different, a few days later he left us.?

I’m going to take a step back now and see the "me" pre dads death. I didn’t know about grief. It was a stranger to me. I didn’t know how to talk about it. How to speak to someone who was going through it. It was this uncomfortable and unfamiliar elephant in the room. I tried to relate to people who had experienced it, but I couldn’t properly, so I always felt I fell short in advice.?

It's been bugging me since my own experience, about how grief is handled in the workplace.? How someone grieving sitting in work, may be seemingly ok on the outside, but they would most likely be shouting in their head “how can we talk about this, when you know what I have lost?”?

That person may have just wanted their grief acknowledged more, more messages sent, more time spent being able to talk about it, more time allowed to be at home around family and supporting family. And for us, by that I mean 'work', to realise grief is an ongoing process, it’s not over after a couple of weeks, or a set amount of days.

A study in Harvard business review says:?

On the whole, we found, managers come to work prepared to celebrate births and birthdays, and even to handle illnesses, but when it comes to death, they fall silent and avert their gaze. The default approach is to try to spare the office from grief, leaving bereaved employees alone for a few days and then hoping they’ll return expediently to work?.

So, I’ve got to take what has happened and make a positive out of it. We, at Marble,?need to apply more effort around how to help any member of our team should the terrible happen.

STEP 1- QUESTION

Is your compassionate leave policy in line with what you and your agency stand for?

Typically, compassionate leave in the UK is 3-5 days long for the loss of an immediate family member (spouse, civil partner, partner, sibling and children), 2-3 days for less close relationships (grandparents, grandchildren, step parents) and 1 day for in-laws, aunts, uncles and cousins.

The issue of outlining criteria for a bereavement leave policy revolves around the fact that grief is subjective. One employee may have an estranged relationship with family and cope relatively easily with a bereavement, whereas another employee may lose a dear friend and suffer terribly. Defining situations that qualify for specific leave entitlements is virtually impossible.

As business owners, ask yourselves:

• Are there spaces allowed for people to talk and educate each other??
• Where best do we direct them to??
• How do you educate others to talk comfortably??
• How do you classify who someone can take compassionate leave for? Often defined as parents, grandparents, siblings and children.

STEP 2- RESEARCH

At the end of this article I have given some useful links to help us understand how to talk about grief, and maybe provide guidance on how you might review your compassionate leave policy. There are lots of amazing sites, books and podcasts out there, this is just a very small selection. Please do add more in the comments, I'd love to hear and share.

STEP 3- ACTION

Make a change. Here is an overview of what we have done:

• Broadened our policy to include compassionate leave for the death of any person who is meaningful to an employee.
• Offering up to 7 days additional paid leave so that they can grieve and get the support they need. We do not define “closeness” and we will not ask about their relationship to the person or what they meant to them.?
• We’ve not placed any limits on when those days can be taken.
• We let the person decide how many or how few details they want to give their manager.?

Other considerations:

• Think about the process when they return to work. How is that managed? There are many important considerations around sensitivity and workload.
• How to manage communication with the individual / internal team and clients.

"Over these past two years without him, I've learned that when someone is going through hardship, the best thing we can do is show up and be there for them. Companies can show up through bereavement policies and coworkers can show up by encouraging each other to bring their whole selves to work." Sheryl Sandberg when bringing extended bereavement leave to her late husband's company.

      At Marble we will be present, be patient and be open.        

Useful books, articles and podcasts:

Books and Podcasts

• Grief Works by Julia Samuel
• The nuances of grief, with Cariad Lloyd on Doing It Right with Pandora Sykes
• Bereavement Room podcast
• How To Fail: Colin Hehir on How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
• Grief and the workplace with Lizzie Pickering
• Glittering a turd ?This specific episode is with Giovanna Fletcher and she talks about her miscarriage. It's a "nice" podcast that doesn't necessarily solve anything but it definitely provides a sense of "it's not just me"

Time off

• Sheryl Sandberg (fortune.com)
• Time off for family and dependants (gov.uk)

How to talk about grief in the workplace

• When a colleague is grieving- Harvard Business review?
• Understanding grief and how to talk to someone who has been bereaved- Marie Curie

Lastly, a small but necessary thank you to Edward (Teddy) Watt , Darren Haskell-Thomas , Robbie Parry , Patrick Keogh and the wonderful team Marble for your support. I'm lucky to work alongside you all, its times like these which make me appreciate that even more.