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It's Okay to Talk About Death at Work
Ashley Jones · Founder · Momento Foundation, nonprofit supporting families facing terminal diagnosis and grief
Summary
- Ashley Jones rates workplace grief support at 2 to 3 out of 10. Companies have policies. Leaders don't have the training or language to use them.
- Companies don't just fail to support grieving employees. They actively add trauma through avoidance, inappropriate responses, and rigid enforcement of policies that don't fit the loss.
- Memory preservation, photographs, rituals, tangible connection, is scientifically supported grief care. Most workplaces act like the person who died never existed.
- Death positivity is not about dwelling on mortality. It is about bringing the same intentionality to how you treat people that you would want if it were you.
- When employees are cared for during their worst moments, they become the most loyal, most productive people in the building. That loyalty is permanent.
Who This Episode Is For
HR leaders and managers will find this useful. It covers how workplace culture compounds or relieves grief, and what moving from avoidance to genuine support looks like.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- Why memory preservation is evidence-based grief support and how workplaces can honor rather than erase the people employees lose.
- What workplace grief failure actually looks like, from stories of employees fired during hospice to managers walking down different hallways.
- Why absence of compassion adds trauma to grief, and what leaders can do to close that gap.
- What death positivity means for organizations and how it changes the culture leaders build.
- How to use empathy as a decision-making tool: would you be ready to work Friday if your child died Monday?
- What managers can do right now to improve their response, even without company-wide policy change.
Key Takeaways
Memory Preservation Is Evidence-Based Support, Not Just Sentiment
After Ashley's daughter Skylar died, professional photographs became her most important grief tool. The images were painful at first. One week later, she needed to see her daughter's face. Those photographs gave her a tangible way to hold Skylar. Research confirms what she experienced.
- Photographs and memory preservation tools create bridges between life and death that support ongoing grief work.
- The grief work doesn't end at death. Memory keeps the connection alive in a healthy way.
- Rituals matter. Greeting a photo the same way you would greet the person is continuity, not delusion.
- Workplaces that pretend the person who died never existed add trauma to grief.
- Simple acts, acknowledging the loss, naming the person who died, keeping them present, signal that the grief is seen.
Workplace Grief Support Is Failing. Here Is What That Looks Like.
Ashley rates workplace grief support at 2 to 3 out of 10. After hearing hundreds of employee stories, her diagnosis is consistent: avoidance, ignorance, and rigid adherence to policies never designed for real loss.
- Common failure: managers avoid the grieving employee entirely. Different hallways. No eye contact. Silence.
- Common failure: enforcing three-day bereavement leave for the loss of a child or a spouse.
- Common failure: piling on deadlines because dealing with grief feels professionally uncomfortable.
- Standard bereavement leave was not designed for the losses that hurt most. It needs to be treated as a floor, not a ceiling.
- One story: a woman's employer laid her off during a mass layoff while her husband was on hospice. She was the breadwinner with twin daughters. That is absence of love compounding grief.
- The cost of failing grieving employees is not just human. It is financial, reputational, and cultural.
Absence of Love Is Suffering
Brené Brown writes that the absence of love is suffering. Ashley applies that directly to work. Some suffering is unavoidable: the illness, the death, the loss. Whether the company adds to it is not unavoidable. That is a choice, and most companies are making the wrong one.
- Grieving employees are already suffering. Workplace avoidance and rigidity make that suffering worse.
- Presence is the antidote: showing up, saying something even imperfect, acknowledging the loss.
- The right language matters, but showing up imperfectly still beats silence every time.
- Companies that show up with love during an employee's worst moment become brand ambassadors. That loyalty never fades.
- Companies that stay absent are remembered for that too. People share stories about how they were treated.
- The gap between good and bad grief support is not expertise. It is the willingness to be present when it is uncomfortable.
Death Positivity Shifts How We Live and Lead
Since losing Skylar in 2011, Ashley has watched Americans grow more willing to name death openly. Death positivity doesn't mean obsessing over mortality. It means using awareness of our limits to make better choices about how we live and lead.
- Death awareness is clarifying. When you face it, the trivial falls away and what matters becomes obvious.
- Before Skylar, Ashley spent energy on external validation: appearance, others' opinions, material things. After Skylar, none of it mattered.
- Leaders who internalize their own mortality tend to build more present, more generous, more loyal cultures.
- The same clarity applies to organizations: what are your actual values? Are you living them when it is hardest?
- Daily practices matter: gratitude, presence, treating each interaction like it might be the last one.
- Grief changes how leaders show up, often permanently, and usually for the better.
What Managers Can Do Right Now
Individual managers can shift their response today without waiting for company-wide policy change. Ashley's framework starts with one question: if this were your child, your parent, your partner, what would you want? Then make that available.
- Use empathy as a decision-making tool. Put yourself in the employee's position before making any call about leave or timeline.
- Get educated. Read, take a training, watch experts. Staying ignorant about how to support grief is a choice.
- A step-by-step approach to supporting grieving employees gives managers concrete language before a loss happens.
- Check your avoidance. Walking a different hallway because you don't know what to say has real consequences.
- Tell the employee their job is secure. That single statement removes one of the biggest sources of anxiety during grief.
- When employees are cared for, they become loyal, high-performing, and vocal advocates for the organization. That return is real.
About Ashley Jones
- Founder of Momento Foundation, a nonprofit working to transform how individuals and organizations approach grief and healing.
- Lost her daughter, Skylar, to spinal muscular atrophy in 2011. Photographs became her most powerful grief tool, and she began offering free memory-preservation photography to families facing terminal diagnosis.
- Expanded to corporate training, working with over 100 business leaders on grief-informed leadership. Momento has served nearly 150 families and over 7,000 individuals.
- Advocates for death-positive culture, intentional living, and policies that treat grief as the universal human experience it is.
Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn →
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it okay to talk about death at work?
Yes, and avoiding it causes harm. When workplaces treat death as off-limits, grieving employees receive a clear message: your loss is not welcome here. Death-positive culture means acknowledging that loss is universal, that it affects work, and that ignoring it compounds suffering. Companies that create space for grief build loyalty that survives the hardest moments.
What does workplace grief support look like when it fails?
Ashley Jones rates workplace grief support at 2 to 3 out of 10. Failure looks like: managers avoiding grieving employees entirely, companies laying off someone whose spouse is on hospice, enforcing three-day bereavement leave for a child's death. These responses don't just fail to help. They add trauma to a situation the employee was already barely surviving.
What is death positivity and why does it matter for companies?
Death positivity means treating mortality as a normal part of life rather than a taboo. For organizations, it means creating cultures where loss can be named. Leaders who sit with how finite time is tend to build more present, more loyal cultures. They make better decisions about how to treat people during the moments that matter most.
What should managers do when an employee loses a child?
The test is simple: if it were your child, would you be ready to return in three days? No. Then do not expect it from anyone else. Give the employee as much time as they need, tell them their job is secure, and follow their lead. The team's short-term inconvenience is not comparable to what that employee is carrying.
How can individual managers improve grief support without company-wide buy-in?
Start with empathy: ask what you would want if it were your parent, your child, your partner. Then make that available. Get educated. Read, take a training, watch experts on this topic. Check your avoidance: walking a different hallway because you don't know what to say is a choice with real consequences.
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