Grief in the Workplace

An Outline for Helping

STOP THE ACTION
The first step in dealing with a death in an institution or workplace is to stop the normal activities and reschedule so that employees can come together sharing their thoughts and feelings. Depending on the organization, this moratorium will take differing forms. In a school it is relatively easy to call all of the staff and students together in the auditorium, causing a complete halt in all business. However, in a business where salespersons are out of the office and everyone has a varied schedule, this will be much more difficult. One the other hand, many businesses have adopted the practice of actually closing for a day to honor the deceased. While this is a valuable mechanism, it precludes everyone coming together to share.

FOCUS TO FEEL, TALK, SHARE
One of the most healing endeavors is to make time to express, process and share the feelings that are evoked by grief. By stopping the usual activities, we provide an opening to allow for sharing. It is often useful to invite an outside facilitator to help lead the group(s). Getting together has to be an individualized process, especially in larger institutions. Logically selected groups may meet separately after everyone meets as a unit. Or if it’s not possible for all staff to be together, then a series of smaller meetings may be the start, leading up to a larger ceremony or remembrance.

USE DIFFERING FORMATS
Because people function differently to start with and then they grieve in their own style, it is important to offer as many different formats as possible. For example, some people find a group very intimidating and would not be able to express their thoughts and feelings. Thus they would need a one-on-one situation. Some people find ceremonies healing, while some find them unappealing. In one school where several students had been killed in a car accident, a large assembly was held immediately to make the announcement and get initial reactions. Then students went to their homerooms where they could talk with a familiar teacher. All
teachers were asked to either cancel their usual lesson or relate it to the event. Desks were set up in the hallway where parents, social workers, pastors and others were stationed. Several private offices were available for one-to-one intensive sessions, and several small group rooms were staffed for drop in discussions. Thus, many formats were offered and students could use whatever was best for them. The wide range, from casual hallway chats to serious private sessions, proved very useful. This service array was kept in place for several days.

CREATE CEREMONY / RITUAL
Ceremony and ritual can be very healing for most people. The ceremony can be as simple as having everyone take time to sign a card that goes to the bereaved family or it can be actually planning and conducting the funeral or memorial. In addition periodic remembrances offer opportunities to process thoughts and feelings that arise. Anniversaries are useful marker points and can be utilized for ceremonies.

PROVIDE MANY OPPORTUNITIES
We need to remind ourselves that one chance to grieve isn’t enough. Some employees may be in shock and not be able to take advantage of an event. So the more opportunities and repetitions that we can offer, the more effective will be our healing. By offering as many formats as possible, and as many varieties of activities as possible, we can support a diverse group of workers.

UTILITZE DIVERSE HELPERS
Wherever possible it is effective to use a wide spectrum of helping persons. Once again we need to take into account the uniqueness of people and their emotional and behavioral responses. Some people may feel perfectly at home with a cleric, while others either lack any religious background or even blame God for their trauma. Some people may be comfortable spilling out their deepest emotions with a volunteer while they recoil at the very mention of talking with a psychotherapist. And we are all very complicated so that we might feel comfortable unburdening ourselves with a volunteer, yet reserve certain issues for a clergyman and other issues for a social worker.

CONCLUSION
The above process is designed to allow the workplace to take responsibility for those issues that deeply affect its constituency. The process provides the maximum individualization, while still encouraging people to share what they can with each other. Taking into account our individual uniqueness does not require us to carry our burdens totally alone. Sharing emotions and memories can be very healing.

Find us at www.griefcounselor.org

A Grief Out of Season

We are not prepared to lose a friend and colleague in the span of a day or weekend. We are not prepared to have death come to us so suddenly, unexpectedly, almost assaultively. Work is the known world—the place for demonstrating our strength, our competence, our viability to exact predictable results. We are broadsided by the news of sudden, violent, and senseless death. And it is as if, for a moment, time stands still, as we take in the information that a person of youth and promise, our friend and colleague, has died. This truly is a time of grief out of season.

In the workplace, this may leave a desk marked by personal touches, work in progress, voicemail and email still active. It leaves conversations unfinished and relationships suspended. It requires us to take care of our colleague’s workload, even before we have fully processed our own reactions.

And what is this thing call “grief?” Grief is the natural, healthy, spontaneous, unlearned, normal, emotional healing process that occurs after a significant loss. It includes aspects that are both so very unique to each of us, and aspects that are universal to our species as biological and emotional beings. An elephant mother in the wild allows the herd to go its way as she stays for days caring for and mourning a dying offspring. Cutting edge research shows that the human brain registers emotional wounds in the exact location as physical injury, a fact known subjectively by all of us who have experienced heartbreak, the aftermath of divorcing families, the disorganization of relocation, the unrealized hopes of lost dreams, and the myriad of the challenges of life’s endings and beginnings.

In the case of sudden loss, though, people describe a reaction that includes feeling helpless, vulnerable, or even fearful. This loss out of season rocks our reality. The world no longer seems as controllable, predictable, or as fair as we thought it to be. This can be unbalancing in ways that affect our feeling, thinking, and behaving.

We may feel waves of sadness. And we may experience irritability or anger at the circumstance of this particular loss, at the upset to our belief in the fairness of life and our belief in the expected order of life events. We may feel guilty that we don’t feel what others are feeling. Or we may find that this loss triggers the memory of past losses, perhaps even ones that we thought were long past and resolved. And we may feel remembrances of our national and world crises—September 11th, for example.

And having these feelings, coming and going, as is expectable in grief, we can feel fatigued, preoccupied, or distracted. Sometimes people may notice sleep disturbances, restlessness, and anxiety, or feel more susceptible to physical illness. And so for a time, work productivity may be off, and relationships may feel the strain of this more intense internal process.

All of these reactions may be normal in the days and weeks ahead, in this time of grief out of season. Initial reactions of shock and numbness may shift to the more active signs of grieving we have been describing. At the very least, the disruption in the normal flow of the workplace brings with it significant stress. And so, it is a time to stop the action. Talk. Think. Contemplate. Some may be challenged with questions regarding their religious faith, or the meaning of life. Talk some more. To your friends and colleagues here. To family and other supports. If you notice reactions that stay with you in a troubling way—there is no right or wrong way to grieve and rebalance after loss—then take another step. Consider talking with a professional, a therapist or clergy member.

For many, this is a first loss. So you have no prototype for your own reactions or feelings. This is a loss out of season, and many of your same age friends will not be able to relate to your experience. Keep an eye on yourself in the days and weeks ahead. Plan your strategies to de-stress and reorient. You will rebalance. And the world will stabilize. And it will also be normal if it feels like there is a shift occurring inside. Because today is deepened and colored, with remembrance, in this season of grief.

Find us at www.griefcounselor.org