grief-informed workplace – After a family death, employers often offer only a short bereavement leave—then expect employees to quickly return to “business as usual.” But experts and one employer describe a longer, messier reality: grieving workers struggle with isolation, lost productiv
When Ryan Jennings was pulled from a rip current during a family vacation in Florida, his children’s safety came first—until he didn’t make it back. By the time Stephen Woods learned the outcome, the loss landed in more than one place at once.
For the past five years, Jennings had worked as senior vice president of client services at Woods’ medical health marketing firm in Maine. When Woods spoke about what grief looks like inside a business, he described a ripple effect that doesn’t stop at the family.
“When you lose somebody you considered your son and somebody who was a business leader in your business, you’ve got grieving family members, you’ve got grieving employees and you’ve got grieving clients,” Woods said. “But the business had to go on.”
He said contracts, employees, and budgets don’t pause for tragedy. Acknowledging the death, he said, is possible—but trying to “unplug” for weeks or months isn’t.
“If you have contracts, if you have employees, if you have budgets, obviously you take some time to recognize the loss, but the business is people’s livelihoods, it’s legal obligations, you can’t just stop,” Woods said. “You can’t take a few weeks or months off and just unplug.”
That is the tension many American workers face: grief keeps arriving long after the first few days, while workplaces often operate on a schedule designed for funeral logistics, not trauma.
Rebecca Feinglos, a certified grief support specialist and founder of Grieve Leave, said employers end up on the front lines of grief every day. She hosts the podcast Grief’d Up, and she argued that too many workplaces stop at kind words and an employee assistance program referral.
Few organizations, she said, provide enough—especially once employees come back. Bereavement leaves, she said, are not long enough, and when people return, they often get too little support. The consequences show up in company performance and in employees’ lives.
The result, Feinglos said, is “Billions lost to unsupported grief in decreased productivity, lower morale and job satisfaction, greater absences and higher turnover.”
For many workers, the most stressful part isn’t only the loss itself—it’s disclosing it. “It’s your boss who you will have to disclose that someone died to,” Feinglos said. “You will have to tell your boss you are going to take some time off. And how your boss responds to that, how they support you or don’t, will be something you remember forever.”.
Not everyone gets legal protection—and most don’t get much time
Only five states—California, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland and Washington—have laws mandating leave when a loved one dies. In the rest of the country, employees depend on managers and company goodwill.
Bereavement leave is also the most common paid option: 9 in 10 employers extend it. But the standard can be small, with leave as limited as three days off, often restricted to the death of immediate family members.
Ron Gura, co-founder and CEO of bereavement firm Empathy, said traditional policies were built for making funeral and other arrangements. What they rarely account for, he said, is the grief and trauma that persist well beyond the early days.
“Expanding on existing bereavement leave policies goes a long way in supporting employees when they need it most,” Gura said.
Still, flexibility matters because grief doesn’t follow a timetable. Jon Hyman, chair of the employment and labor practice at the Wickens Herzer Panza law firm, said he advises clients to rely on case-by-case arrangements.
“Grief doesn’t follow a schedule, and a rigid three-day bereavement policy applied without any discretion is a good way to lose a good employee,” Hyman said. “Employers who handle these moments well earn real loyalty. Those who don’t tend to find out about it in an exit interview.”
Making workplaces “grief-informed” instead of just accommodating leave
Even generous bereavement policies can fall short if the workplace culture makes grief feel like a brief, managed inconvenience. Sarah Kagan. founder of Keriah Grief Coaching. said employers need a “grief-informed” culture that treats grief as a natural response to loss and adjusts support when employees return.
“Grief at work is treated very much like a moment in time right now. You have a grief event, you take your bereavement leave. Maybe you have one week back of people being aware and sort of gentle with you. And then you’re back to business as usual,” Kagan said.
She pointed to a common blind spot: managers and coworkers may not know how to ask. and employees can feel the emotional pressure of silence. Kagan’s view echoes what Sheryl Sandberg described in “Option B: Facing Adversity. Building Resilience. and Finding Joy.” In the book. Sandberg wrote about the sudden death in 2015 of her husband. SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg. and described grief as the “elephant in the room.” She said she felt more isolated when no one asked how she was feeling.
Gura recommended training managers for sensitive conversations. He said training should include “check[ing] in compassionately, offering ongoing support and being flexible about workload and expectations during the adjustment period.”
Feinglos added that support often starts with what a manager says before any policy is applied.
“One of the most supportive things a manager can do is say, ‘I trust you to tell me what you need right now, and we’ll figure it out together,’” Feinglos said.
Small actions can also matter. Kagan said even something as simple as reading the obituary so a manager and team can use a person’s name and share a small detail can humanize the loss for the employee who is returning.
Talk openly, check gently, and avoid forcing “fine”
Feinglos said the silence can be as heavy as the paperwork. Instead of expecting an employee to perform normalcy, she recommended checking in and asking, “How is today feeling?” rather than “Are you OK?”
“This creates room for an honest answer without pressuring someone to say they’re ‘fine,’” Feinglos said.
Kagan also emphasized how grief can affect work in ways managers might misread. She said people may struggle with concentration, suffer from brain fog or memory lapses, become withdrawn or irritable, and have trouble with everyday assignments or meeting deadlines.
“They may struggle with everyday assignments or miss deadlines, even days of work. But your employee isn’t slacking,” Kagan said. “It’s grief brain.”
She described the misunderstanding from both sides: a manager may interpret the change as disengagement, while the employee is focused on loss and the practical fallout.
“As the manager, you think they’re not committed. They’re checked out. They don’t care about this job,” Kagan said. “The employee is sitting here thinking, ‘I really miss my person. I have all this estate settlement to do. I’m really distracted by my grief.’ But they don’t tell their employer any of that.”.
To get beyond assumptions, Kagan said managers should ask questions aimed at where the employee is in their grieving journey. She suggested language like. “What’s taking up headspace for you right now?” or “What’s your mental bandwidth like this week?” or “What kind of capacity do you have to be plugged in right now?”.
“That’s going to give you as an employer the opportunity to really understand what’s going on for your employee,” she said.
Flexibility has to be real—and it has to last
Grief doesn’t look the same for everyone, and Kagan said employers should avoid one-size-fits-all expectations. Some employees may need to work more, while others may need to work less.
She pointed to practical adjustments such as flexible or part-time schedules, staggering the return to work, letting someone start their workday later or leave earlier, and modifying workloads by extending deadlines or temporarily shifting assignments or projects.
Kagan also suggested small environmental changes, like providing a day without meetings or a desk in a quieter area of the office.
Feinglos said grief is not linear, and emotional triggers can arrive unexpectedly. “Grief doesn’t follow a calendar. Someone might seem ‘fine’ one week and fall apart the next when they hit a milestone date or anniversary,” she said.
“That’s how grief works. Flexibility has to be ongoing, not just in the immediate aftermath of a loss.”
For Stephen Woods, the lesson is that a business doesn’t get to stop being a business after tragedy. But the way it continues—what it expects from people. how it communicates. and how long it stays responsive—can make the difference between a workplace that helps employees carry on and one that leaves them alone with grief.
bereavement leave workplace grief employee support productivity employee retention grief-informed culture mental health at work corporate policies managers