Loss in the Workplace: An HR Perspective
Alex Seiler · Chief People Officer · Alex Seiler, LLC, HR advisory and leadership consulting
Summary
- Alex Seiler lost his mother to esophageal cancer while serving as a senior HR leader. His experience revealed how much most companies don't understand about what grief actually asks of employees.
- Anticipatory grief is real and often harder than post-loss grief. A five-day policy that activates only after the death has already missed the hardest stretch.
- About 70 percent of positive grief experiences at work are driven by manager behavior, not HR policy. Most companies still don't train managers to respond well.
- Companies exist at different grief-support maturity levels: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. Staying at 1.0 without trying to improve is a choice, and employees notice.
- The best bereavement policies are built from employee experience, not HR assumptions. If you haven't asked the people most affected, the policy will miss them.
Who This Episode Is For
HR leaders, CPOs, and managers looking to move beyond bare-minimum bereavement policies. It covers how personal loss reshapes what good support looks like from the inside.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- Why anticipatory grief matters for HR and why support that starts at death often starts too late.
- What your bereavement policy communicates about your culture, whether you intend it to or not.
- How managers shape the grief experience more than any written policy does.
- What separates bare-minimum support from a grief-informed workplace, and what maturity levels look like in practice.
- How to design better support by listening to the employees who have actually lived it.
Key Takeaways
Grief Starts Before the Loss and Doesn't End at the Funeral
Alex started mourning his mother before she died. Months of knowing it was coming while trying to hold everything else together. That experience, anticipatory grief, doesn't appear in most bereavement policies because it isn't triggered by a death certificate.
- Anticipatory grief can be as hard as the grief that follows death. Employees may be struggling for months before any loss is officially recognized.
- Everything at work feels trivial when you're watching someone you love die. No deadline will feel as important as being with them.
- Grief resurfaces throughout the year on birthdays, holidays, and unexpected moments. Employees don't finish grieving in week two.
- A five-day bereavement policy sends a message: your grief is a workweek problem. Most grief is not.
- The hardest moments often come after the initial support fades. Employees return to work and then process the full weight of the loss alone.
Your Bereavement Policy Is a Signal About Your Culture
Most bereavement policies haven't changed in decades. That's not just an oversight. It's a signal that the company hasn't thought seriously about loss in a long time.
- One-size-fits-all policies fail because grief is personal. Losing a spouse is different from losing a parent, a sibling, or chosen family.
- Non-consecutive bereavement time throughout the year is more realistic than a lump sum in week one. Some employees need a day off in July for their mother's birthday.
- Flexible arrangements, like working remotely while caring for a dying parent, can make an enormous difference. Ask whether it's possible before assuming it isn't.
- The gap between legal minimum and real support is where employees form lasting opinions about whether their company actually cares.
- If your policy hasn't been reviewed in five years, it probably doesn't reflect what your employees actually need.
Managers Shape Grief Outcomes More Than Any Policy Does
About 70 percent of positive employee experiences during grief are driven by manager behavior, not HR policy alone. Managers are first responders. By the time HR gets involved, the tone has already been set.
- A manager who says "I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you" changes the experience. A manager who avoids the employee entirely also changes the experience.
- Training frontline managers on grief response is not optional. Without it, they default to awkward silence or comments that land badly.
- "Do you need anything?" asked without pressure is very different from "When are you coming back?" One lifts burden. The other adds to it.
- A clear framework for managers gives them language before loss happens, not just when they're already in the moment.
- Some managers will say the wrong thing. Don't penalize them. Teach them. Grief training helps managers understand what they're responding to.
- Inconsistent manager response signals that your company is uncomfortable with grief. Employees on the same team notice when one manager knows how to show up and another doesn't.
The Gap Between Bare Minimum and Grief-Informed Is Real
Most companies offer a bereavement policy and an EAP referral. They believe that's sufficient. It isn't. A grief-informed company actively trains employees, creates community, and builds support that continues beyond week one.
- EAP is professional support, and it matters. But it's also impersonal. The human connection from managers and peers is what employees cite as most meaningful.
- The limits of EAP alone become visible when employees return to work and find no one has followed up.
- Grief training for all employees, not just HR, signals that loss is a normal part of workplace life. Everyone has a role in supporting colleagues.
- When two people discover they've experienced similar losses, community forms. Companies should create space for that rather than leaving it to chance.
- Companies exist at maturity levels: 1.0 (policy only), 2.0 (training added), 3.0 (grief-informed culture). Being at 1.0 is not failure. Not trying to improve is.
Design Support Around Real Experience, Not Policy Tables
Before finalizing any bereavement policy, talk to the people who have actually lived it. Not in focus groups. In individual conversations. That's where the real picture emerges.
- Talk to employees who've experienced loss: what worked, what was missing, what they wished existed. Their answers will shape policy better than any HR manual.
- Talk to employees who haven't experienced loss at work: what questions come up for them when a colleague is grieving? This reveals where training is needed.
- Talk to HR about where they feel under-equipped. If HR doesn't feel confident having grief conversations, that's a training gap before it's a policy gap.
- Effective bereavement policy is built from grassroots feedback, not from executive assumptions about what employees need.
- Non-traditional losses matter. Friends, chosen family, roommates. If your policy only covers immediate family as defined in 1990, it's leaving people out.
- This is not a one-and-done exercise. Build in annual reviews to evolve the policy as your organization and its people change.
About Alex Seiler
- Chief People Officer and HR advisor with a twenty-year career at NBC Universal, WeWork, Time, Ogilvy, and Citi.
- Lost his mother, Sandy, to esophageal cancer. She was a constant reinventor who met adversity with creativity and resilience, lessons Alex now carries into his work on compassionate workplaces.
- Known for speaking openly about personal loss and vulnerability as leadership tools, not liabilities.
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn →
Frequently Asked Questions
What is anticipatory grief and why does it matter for HR?
Anticipatory grief is the emotional pain that sets in when you know someone close is dying. It can be as hard as the grief that follows death. Employees going through it often find workplace demands feel trivial. HR leaders who don't understand anticipatory grief design support that only activates after death, missing the hardest stretch of what an employee is actually carrying.
What does a bereavement policy signal about a company's culture?
A rigid five-day policy signals that grief fits neatly into a workweek. Grief-informed companies treat bereavement policy as a living document, review it regularly, and build it around what employees actually experience. If your policy hasn't changed in a decade, it's probably telling employees something you didn't intend.
How do managers shape the grief experience more than HR policy does?
About 70 percent of positive employee experiences during grief are driven by manager behavior, not HR policy alone. Managers are first responders. A manager who says "I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you" changes the memory of that loss at work. Without training, managers default to silence or comments that make it worse.
What is the difference between bare-minimum and grief-informed support?
Bare-minimum support is a bereavement policy plus an EAP referral. Grief-informed companies train all employees, create space for loss, and build support that continues beyond week one. Companies exist at different maturity levels. Staying at 1.0 without trying to improve is a choice, and employees recognize it.
How should companies design bereavement support from scratch?
Start with one-on-one conversations with employees who have experienced loss. Ask what worked, what was missing, and what they wished existed. Don't rely on focus groups or executive assumptions. Grassroots feedback builds better policy than anything designed at the leadership level without input from the people most affected.
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