Liesel Mertes founded Handle With Care after losing her daughter, Mercy, at eight days old and seeing how unprepared workplaces are for grief and crisis. She now equips leaders and managers with practical tools and training so employees feel supported during their hardest seasons. Her online Courses can be found here

‍TLDR:

‍1. What Disruptive Life Events Do to Employees

• These events range from death to diagnosis, caregiving, divorce, addiction, and more.
• The strain usually starts long before the loss. PTO, focus, and emotional capacity are already depleted.
• Grief affects concentration, memory, decision making, and social energy for months.
• Without support, people often leave within a year because they feel abandoned or misunderstood.

2. How Workplaces Fall Short

• Relying on a 3–5 day policy and assuming things return to normal.
• Managers avoiding the topic because they don’t want to say the wrong thing.
• Leaders offering vague promises (“Take all the time you need”) or trying to fix it instead of listening.
• Silence, clichés, and rushing the employee back to “normal” create lasting resentment and drive turnover.
• Colleagues watch how a grieving teammate is treated, which shapes trust and culture.

3. What Good Support Looks Like

• Managers give full attention, avoid multitasking, and acknowledge the weight of the news.
• Use simple, grounding language when unsure:
  • “I’m not sure what to say, but I’m here and I appreciate you telling me.”
• Offer concrete help rather than open-ended questions:
  • Move non-essential meetings.
  • Reassign parts of a project.
  • Set the next check-in (“Let’s reconnect in 48 hours”).
• Ask about communication preferences before sharing anything with the team.
• Mark key dates (one month out, holidays, anniversaries) to check in.

4. What Strong Leadership Does

• Publicly validate that disruptive events affect work and require support, not just policy.
• Model vulnerability by sharing their own experiences and why they care about doing better now.
• Ensure managers are trained with real scripts and tools, not left to improvise.
• Frame support as part of business performance and values, not optional “soft skills.”
• Champion tools like Bereave and Handle With Care so employees know the company means it.

5. Why This Matters for Culture & Business

• Better support builds loyalty, belonging, and trust that lasts years.
• Poor support fuels disengagement, presenteeism, absenteeism, and preventable turnover.
• Replacing employees costs far more than providing thoughtful support during a crisis.
• When workplaces handle grief well, employees describe the company as living its values and stay longer.

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