Innovative employee benefit addresses critical skills gap

I was at the pinnacle of my career as the CEO of a wealth management firm and raising two talented sons when tragedy struck. In 2014, my 14-year-old son and my father were murdered by a white supremacist intent on killing Jews.

In the days, weeks and months following their deaths, I struggled with brain fog, focus and forgetfulness. Numbers swam across spreadsheets. In meetings, I’d realize minutes later I hadn’t comprehended anything that had been said. My colleagues and employees cared, but conversations often felt awkward and uncomfortable. I had to train myself and others how to talk with me.

My experience underscored how ill-prepared we are at understanding and reintegrating grieving employees back into the workplace. Grief causes temporary, neurochemical changes in the brain, referred to as “grief brain” that affects job performance. Grief can also cause unexplained body aches and illness which exacerbates an employee’s inability to focus and engage at work.

It’s not just grieving employees who suffer. When an employer doesn’t know how to support a grieving employee, the costs to the organization are extensive. Each year, mishandled grief in the workplace costs companies $113.7 billion in lost productivity, on-the-job errors and turnover (Grief Recovery Institute). Nearly 60% of employees who feel unsupported at work consider leaving their jobs.

While the type of acute, traumatic loss my family and I endured is unusual, life disruptions that cause grief are not. At any given moment, 1 in 4 employees is trying to navigate a life disruption that also interferes with work. In addition to the death of a loved one, common life disruptions include caregiving, divorce, injury, illness and career transitions.

Employee Assistance Plans (EAPs) don’t go far enough. On average, employees receive three or four days of bereavement, which means they return to work still reeling and unable to perform at their previous capacity.

Normally when a life disruption confronts an employee, leaders refer their employee to the company’s employee benefits for support. Although EAPs are wonderful employee benefits, national usage averages between 3% and 6%.

Even if an employee does use their EAP, this benefit is not designed to provide resources to leaders and associates in a working relationship with a grieving employee. Unprepared for grief’s effect on their employee’s ability to think and function, employers make critical judgment errors and communication mistakes that drive absenteeism, presenteeism (when an employee is physically present but not emotionally engaged) and turnover rates.

Fill the leadership development gap. Even the most seasoned professional can feel a degree of uncertainty and apprehension about what they should say or do to support a grieving employee. Common questions we receive from leaders include:

• “How do I respond to an employee’s life disruption with humanity while following corporate policy and protecting team cohesion and objectives?”
• “How do I support a grieving employee while also respecting their privacy?”
• “When is the right time to talk about work with a grieving employee without appearing insensitive?”

Successfully reintegrating a life-disrupted employee back into the team requires a delicate balance of head and heart-based support from leadership.

Unfortunately, it’s more common for leaders to rely too much on data-driven corporate policy while expressing little to no empathy, further alienating an already distressed employee. Or they swing to the opposite end of the spectrum and over-identify with their employee’s pain, making short-sighted, impractical decisions that negatively impact their team.

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

Challenging life disruptions don’t have to disrupt work and create extra headaches for employers. When leaders, associates and co-workers have accessible, reliable resources at their fingertips, they’re equipped to take an active, positive role in their employee’s grief recovery. They not only reduce their own stress level by reducing uncertainty and retaining a valuable employee, but they also earn the trust and respect of their team, further strengthening long-term engagement, productivity and retention.

Mindy Corporon is the co-founder/co-CEO of Workplace Healing and the Human Recovery Platform™, which helps employers transform how they support an employee experiencing a life disruption.