How do you help an employee that is grieving?

The HR Blog

Losing someone close to them is devastating for anyone, and how you as employer support your employees is important.

The first step is to put a policy in place for compassionate leave with clear guidelines showing how much time an employee can have off per year and for which relatives the policy applies.  But circumstances may differ and you need to be flexible depending on the relationship between the bereaved and your employee.

So how flexible should you be?  It is important to be reasonable as well as practical.   It is a careful balancing act between ensuring your employee needs to know that as a company you support them and what is needed to run your business.  This is why a good relationship between employee and manager is so important; the communication between both will help the employee.

When the employee returns to work and they may still struggle with the grieving process.  Generally managers aren’t qualified to provide ongoing support and it can put huge emotional pressure on them.  As an employer you can suggest they seek external support, this can be in the form of a counsellor, an employee support help line or talk to a charity like Cruse who are qualified to help.

If you would like help with a policy or situation please do not hesitate to call us on 01483 697 076.

Here is the Cruse website for help and advice too https://www.cruse.org.uk/

Other Articles

Subscribe to Top HR Tips
& download our FREE eBook...

Read our Privacy Policy