High cost of dying can have negative impact on employee health, productivity

The cost of living has increased dramatically during the record inflation of the past year. The cost of dying – physically, logistically and emotionally – also has risen and is having an impact in the workplace.

“As a society, we often minimize the true extent of the challenge posed by the loss of a loved one, a universal experience that we will all encounter over the course of our lives,” says Ron Gura, cofounder and CEO of Empathy, a platform that helps families navigate the aftermath of losing a loved one. “There is a scarcity of social services for the recently bereaved, a general misunderstanding of how to approach those experiencing grief, scant realization of the administrative and financial burden that invariably accompanies grief and, on top all of that, a lack of sufficient bereavement policies in the workplace.”

Empathy this week released its annual report on the cost of dying, focusing on the impact on employees’ send of wellbeing in the workplace. Balancing the burden of grief with a 9-to-5 job unsurprisingly affects employees’ careers. More than 9 in 10 employees either take time off work or adjust their work commitments to deal with the loss of a loved one, while 76% of bereaved employees’ overall performance at work was harmed.

Among the other findings:

• It takes families an average of 12.5 months to resolve all financial matters after a loss, and they spend a median of 12 hours a week on these tasks.
• The average total expense for handling financial matters is $4,384, including accountants’ fees and paying off bills, while the average family spent $4,967 on legal matters.
• Dealing with the house is a responsibility for a sizable number of families. Forty-seven percent of estates included a house or other real estate. Making house-related arrangements takes a long time, and the families surveyed required an average of 15 months to settle them all.
• Bereavement leave policies typically give employees one to five days off, based on the expected timeframe for planning a funeral. However, two-thirds of employees took more time off than the number of days they spent planning the funeral, suggesting that bereavement leave is largely insufficient.

Read more: 1 in 4 US employers offers bereavement leave for pregnancy loss

“This report makes it clearer than ever that bereavement leave and additional bereavement support policies are as important as any other HR benefit,” Gura says. “Employers, employees and society as a whole will all benefit from making enhanced bereavement support into a new standard in the workplace.”