Managers urged to stop reading grief as poor performance

Managers may mistake an employee’s grief for poor performance, leadership development consultant Patricia Bravo told HR Brew. Bravo said grief literacy can help HR teams and leaders respond to loss at work in ways that support employees and protect the business.

Bravo, author of In the Room: When Grief Comes to Work, said grief is a common human experience that still receives limited attention inside organizations. In her view, companies discuss communication styles, work preferences, well-being and mental health more readily than they discuss bereavement and loss.

In an interview with HR Brew, Bravo said HR professionals should consider what grief literacy could add to their organizations. She described it as a practical understanding of loss and grief, rather than the kind of professional expertise held by therapists or thanatologists, who study death, dying and bereavement.

Behavior changes can be misread

Bravo told HR Brew that grief can show up differently from person to person. That variation can make it difficult for HR staff and managers, especially those who have not experienced a major loss, to know how to respond.

She said some work behaviors that appear after a loss may be wrongly assigned to another cause. An employee whose output changes or who appears less present than before could be grieving, according to Bravo, even if a manager is tempted to label the situation as underperformance.

Bravo also said organizations often struggle with how to approach someone who has suffered a loss. She told HR Brew that people may hold back because they fear saying the wrong thing, leaving managers and co-workers unsure how to engage.

What grief literacy means at work

Bravo said grief literacy starts with understanding basic ideas about loss and grief. She argued that employees and leaders do not need to be grief specialists to become more capable of responding to colleagues who are grieving.

That workplace skill may include knowing how to begin a conversation with a grieving employee, Bravo said. It also may include recognizing that a person’s needs can shift from one day to another, and can continue changing across weeks or months.

Bravo told HR Brew that grief does not end after a single offer of support. She said leaders who understand that grief changes over time have a better chance of continuing to support a team member’s health and well-being while the employee works through a loss.

Bravo linked that support to business outcomes as well as employee care. When organizations respond more effectively to grief, she said, they can support the person affected while also addressing the workplace impact of that experience.

HR Brew reported the interview with Bravo. The story was also featured by Fortune.

This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.