Discover practical ways to offer empathetic support that not only eases heartbreak but also fuels resilience, loyalty, and momentum.
Loss is universal, and it can come in many different forms, but our workplaces often treat it as an inconvenient disruption, a short-term absence to shuffle workloads around. But the reality of grief is far more complex. It doesn’t clock out when employees return to work, often dulling focus, draining motivation, and disrupting performance.
And for leaders, ignoring grief isn’t just unkind, it’s also costly.
Grief’s Effect on Productivity and Performance
In a Center for Creative Leadership survey of 338 bereaved employees, researchers found that grief had a strong, significant negative impact on job behaviors, work engagement, and even perceptions of organizational support. A 2021 SAGE Handbook of Organisational Wellbeing explores that unresolved grief can impair cognitive function, concentration, and decision-making, with some employees experiencing mental health declines, including major depressive incidents, that lead to higher healthcare costs and extended leave.
As grief practitioner and author of Soulbroken: A Guidebook for Your Journey Through Ambiguous Grief, Stephanie Sarazin explains in an email interview, grief “expands far beyond ‘sadness’” and can present as “anxiety, brain fog, sleeplessness, fatigue, inflammation, and changes in appetite, energy, memory, and mood,” all of which can profoundly affect an employee’s ability to function at work.
A $75 Million Dollar Loss in Productivity
These individual struggles add up to a significant organizational cost, too. When employees are working through grief without adequate support, productivity dips, mistakes increase, and turnover risk rises. Research from the American Psychiatric Association estimates that grief costs U.S. employers $75 billion annually in lost productivity from grief-related absenteeism, presenteeism, and impaired performance. And for unsupported grief, this figure rises to $225.8 billion annually. This is why leaders must intentionally cultivate empathetic cultures and invest in meaningful grief support; to first care for their people, and to sustain resilient workplaces over the long term.
From Policy to Practice: What Thoughtful Grief Support Looks Like
Here are five ways leaders can embed empathy and grief support into the fabric of their workplaces, helping people heal while keeping teams strong.
Draft a comprehensive grief policy
A compassionate grief policy is one of the strongest foundations a workplace can create to support employees through loss. As Ron Gura, co-founder & CEO of Empathy, a leading technology company transforming the way the world plans for and manages life’s toughest moments, tells me via email, “Traditionally, bereavement policies were originally dedicated to give employees the space and time to take care of funeral arrangements and logistics. However, employers now have a better understanding that employees need additional support and more time to grieve. Expanding on existing bereavement leave policies goes a long way in supporting employees when they need it most.”
Train managers in the C.A.R.E. model
Even though almost all employees will experience grief and bereavement at some point throughout their careers, the people who lead them are often not prepared on how to support them. A 2021 American Psychological Association study on the experiences of employees who continued to work while grieving identified four critical guidelines for leaders to respond effectively: Communication, Accommodation, Recognition of the loss, and Emotional support (C.A.R.E.). When employers, managers, and coworkers are well-versed in these behaviors, employees feel acknowledged, supported, and able to navigate grief while maintaining engagement.
Expand EAPs and provide grief offerings proactively
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and grief support resources are only helpful if employees know they exist and feel comfortable accessing them. Leaders can normalize these resources by proactively sharing information, highlighting counseling services, peer support groups, and digital solutions designed for grief and loss. But as the firm Empathy cautions, EAPs are not one-size-fits-all solutions; rather, they should be taken on a holistic approach that saves grieving employees “time, money, and stress, by streamlining their tasks, helping them avoid costly mistakes, and offering checklists and one-on-one support, on demand.”
Normalize open conversations about loss at work
Creating space for employees to talk openly about grief helps dismantle the stigma and isolation that often accompany loss. Stephanie Sarazin further notes, “Like love, grief needs to be witnessed, so don’t ignore or avoid the grievers in your life. Even if you don’t know what to say, you can still show up with a meaningful message and provide comfort by validating their pain: ‘I’m here for you, I see your grief, and I’m so sorry for the pain you’re feeling right now.’” When leaders model vulnerability by allowing team members to share their experiences, it lets everyone know that grief is recognized and respected, fostering a culture where loss can be navigated while staying connected to colleagues.
Adjust work flexibility and follow up consistently
Even when all grief support measures are carefully attended to, we must still remember that grief doesn’t follow a schedule, and returning to work too quickly or without follow-up support can deepen stress and reduce productivity down the line. Ashley Jones, author and founder of the Momento Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to creating free grief resources and community tools, shared in an email, “As a leader of someone grieving, take the time to check in and listen to your employee. Take action to show that you care and genuinely support them. This will look different across different teams and cultures, but it can be as simple as letting them have time off as well as flex time returning to work.” It can also look like offering other flexible options such as remote work, reduced workloads, and meeting-free periods to help employees gradually re-engage.
The Bottom Line
Bereavement will touch every workplace. And this isn’t a question of if, but when. For leaders who plan and train for it, responding with both empathy and structure will not only safeguard productivity but also build a culture where employees feel valued in every season of life. Grief may be inevitable, but workplace suffering doesn’t have to be. The choice lies with leadership, and the return on that choice is both human and organizational resilience.