Grieving in the workplace: how do grieving employees perceive their experience of workplace support from management?

Abstract

To explore what bereaved employees consider as helpful support from their managers. An online questionnaire was completed by 40 participants from various occupations in the United Kingdom who had been bereaved of their spouse. The data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach. Two key superordinate themes were found: ‘Acknowledgement’ and ‘Response’. This study supports the growing initiative to set informal support for grieving employees thereby enhancing the provision of impactful and timely bereavement support in the workplace. These findings suggest that managers were considered to be supportive when they ‘acknowledged’ the bereaved employees’ situation and their reactions to grief. Additionally, managers were thought to be supportive when they responded in offering specific support depending on the individual’s circumstances and provided sufficient time and space for them to grieve. ‘Acknowledging’ and ‘responding’ appeared to promote understanding and instil a sense of being valued rather than the feeling of being just another number within the organisation. All participants were English speakers and a higher proportion were women, which may influence the generalisability of the findings.

Keywords:

• Death
• bereavement
• workplace
• mental health
• grief support

Acknowledgement

Once off funding payment received from West Kent Education Network