Grief is inescapable, but workplaces often don't know how to deal with it

CATHY WURZER: At some time in your professional career, you will likely mourn the loss of a loved one. There are no bereavement laws, so the number of days off to grieve can vary from company to company. Generally it's three to five days off to deal with all that a death entails. If it's a close relative, you might get a few more days off, maybe. Paurvi Bhatt is a Minnesota health care executive who recently wrote about the topic for the digital publication, Quartz. The article is called How to Really Support Employees During Times of Grief. And she is on the line. Good to hear your voice.

PAURVI BHATT: Hi, Cathy. It's great to be here for this important discussion.

CATHY WURZER: You and I last talked-- oh my goodness-- last February about your decision to step away from your role as a Medtronic health care executive. You were caring for your mom. Your mom died last year. Gosh, it's been a whole year, my goodness. I hope you're doing OK. It's been a year. How are you?

PAURVI BHATT: Thank you. I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Look, it's a journey that everyone comes to, which is what we're here to talk about. And it's an adjustment. And this topic is exactly what I think both my parents, Rekha and Harshad, would want for their legacies, for us to open up and talk more about it.

CATHY WURZER: What are some of the gaps you see in companies today when it comes to employee grief and loss?

PAURVI BHATT: It's a great question for companies and all employers. So I think this is a larger question just about how we interface with work. Some of the larger gaps are around how we understand each other and our culture of loss and grief and what our different practices are and then, of course, some of the tactical things on how do we allow for time that's necessary, not just immediately but over the bereavement cycle that goes a long time.

You asked me. It's been a year. And you'd be surprised. I'm sure if anyone's gone through the process of wrapping up someone's life, you're shocked by how long it takes. And so there's the emotional parts of it. But a lot of times, especially as employers, people are unaware of the management and the administrative time it takes to really wrap things up.

And so while we definitely need time to manage the immediacy of loss and grief and the shock that it is, but we also need time to handle the tactical details. And that is hard when your bandwidth is already stretched and you're in a type of work that you don't commonly go into, which is around these issues of loss and how do you wrap up people's lives.

And so a big gap also happens to be not only in the time off policies, as you introduced, but also in the variety of benefits. There are new ones that are coming together around caregiving and how we support people when they're caring for someone in their final days, but then the mirror image of that. Once they've gone, how do we support people who are really tapped to take care of wrapping things up? And there are great groups that are coming together now and innovating to fill that gap. Empathy is one, which is what I'm an advisor for. And there are so many more. But those gaps are now important to fill.

CATHY WURZER: Exactly. How is this a DEI issue?

PAURVI BHATT: Well, it's fascinating. When you think about culture, you come into anyone's home, each of us has a unique and different culture. And the diverse ways that we go through our lives, they don't just end at the front door of our home. They've certainly come into where we work.

And a lot of that has much more to do with how we approach these life cycle issues from having our children, to choosing a partner, getting married and how we experience loss. And each of us has a different set of cultural norms, ethnic traditions, religious traditions. And bringing that to life and knowing that we can do that in a in an open and honest way at work brings us closer together at a time when we need to be closer together.

As we've all been hearing loneliness, is at a pandemic level. The surgeon general's put out reports on that. And a big part of that is kind of hard to understand, how is that possible. And some of that is because we need different structural ways to come together in these difficult times. DEI programs that are happening inside of all organizations, including the corporate world, have been so important to set up the structure that can allow us to come together, whether they're employee resource groups, survey work to help us see where our differences are, and open conversations.

And the more we lean into them and the more that we recognize inclusion is a two-way street, meaning we want to be included, and in order to be, we need to be included and be inclusive. And that means sharing of each other's cultures more openly in a trusted way. I'll end in saying right now, most organizations are working so hard to build a culture of trust because we spend so much of our waking hours at work. And a lot of that involves really taking the time to listen and learn about each other's culture, all of our cultures.

CATHY WURZER: However, yes, but death is a topic that is still taboo across cultures.

PAURVI BHATT: It is.

CATHY WURZER: So how can employers-- and you asked this question in your excellent article for Quartz. How can employers meet these varying needs of individuals in the workplace as they are grieving the loss of a loved one, knowing that the conversation might be taboo?

PAURVI BHATT: Yeah, it's a great question. And many have said, we are experiencing loss and grief at scale at this point, since the pandemic, since the social unrest that's been happening. And so the taboo is now coming into the light, whether we like it or not. And employers are faced with, how do you come up with a broad solution for something that is so unique? And the ones that have done it well have been able to define policies and benefits that are broad, that are not necessarily just about bereavement, but include bereavement in a larger family policy.

Policies that recognize that different traditions and different faiths define family and the rituals around bereavement and how family get involved can be anything from an immediate family member to extended family. We know today more and more women are choosing to stay single or may not have children. And so who we consider family may be our friends and just allowing for that flexibility in policies allows for a place for us to start the conversation.

It is deeply personal. More than just personal, it's very emotional. We all know that. And it is difficult to feel comfort in expressing emotions at work. Again, though, we are in a season of the last three to five years that have brought this all together. And we know that the minute we open the conversation about loss, we often find people-- I bring up all the time for this reason because you find togetherness in it. It is the other side of the journey of it. And so the more we have these conversations, the better.

I have been privileged to work for companies, both when my father died and when my mother died, where leaders themselves were very open about their own journey. So I'll end in saying, just having the courage to be able to be open about loss when you're at a place where you can be, like I am today, and being able to bring the conversation much more openly into the light.

And then finally, these ERG groups, these employee resource groups, where many of us find friends at work have been really helpful, one, to translate some cultural differences while the bereaved are trying to manage through the day to day for our colleagues and leaders who are trying to better understand. Most of us just don't want to do the wrong thing at a time when we really are trying so hard to do the right thing. And having help around us by looking at these issues around inclusion and diversity is really helpful.

CATHY WURZER: I did an internet search on this topic before you and I talked. Most of the articles were about how the employee can handle grief and loss on the job, how to work while mourning, how grief might affect your work, that kind of thing. You mentioned good examples. Give me one of a company out there that's doing the right thing for their employees.

PAURVI BHATT: Well, certainly, mine did. Medtronic did a fantastic job by having a very open policy around family and what you may need within your life cycle of experiencing family, which included bereavement as well. A more recent one is Johnson and Johnson. They have a very broad policy, a lot of time that's baked into it that allows for employees to be able to-- and managers frankly-- to be able to have the conversation, but also take the amount of time that they need.

What we're seeing in this first wave are a lot of policies that around the time that you need. Other groups that are also very good include the benefits that are necessary, ones that offer help with those administrative and management issues around bereavement.

And so there's a whole handful of different companies-- life insurance companies are great ones-- that have included groups like Empathy, that offer some of the project management that's necessary, some folks that are coordinators and counselors that will take some of the administrative burden off of those of us who are trying to manage closing bank accounts, getting phone lines to finally be shut down, making sure that all of the legal things are falling into place.

I can't tell you how much burden that is on someone and having someone come in and having that provided as a benefit is an incredible resource for all of us and helps all of us feel that we can come back to our lives a bit better once you're going through loss, but also know that our company actually thought ahead and was compassionate in offering these things.

And so I would say the companies that are really starting to move forward and mix the policy together with benefits and then these circles that allow for employees to have open conversations have been incredibly helpful. At the end of the day, beyond the rules of what you can do is just being a human being in the moment.

We've all been through so much. And managers have been coached to know it's OK to go ahead and reach out have been the most successful in doing this. And CEOs and C-suite leaders who also, again, have brought voice to their own journey helps the rest of us in many ways to move forward. So what I will say, this is a new chapter of how companies can bring belonging and inclusion into the space by really being much more intentional about grief and loss. And the health care industry, of all industries, as well as the insurance industry, it's a part of good business for them to do that as well.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I'm glad we got the conversation started here today. Paurvi, thank you so much.

PAURVI BHATT: Thank you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Paurvi Bhatt is a Minnesota health care executive who writes and speaks about the care economy and health equity. As she mentioned, she's an advisor to Empathy, a tech company that helps families navigate the emotional and logistical challenges of loss. We have a link to her article, her Quartz article, on our website.