Holding Space: Helping Colleagues Navigate Grief and Loss at Work

Most workplaces have a policy for bereavement leave. Far fewer have a culture that knows what to do once someone returns.

How an organisation responds to loss says a great deal about whether people feel genuinely seen there, or simply managed. Grief also does not land the same way for everyone.

Cultural and religious mourning practices differ widely, family structures and caregiving responsibilities differ, and financial precarity can shape how much space someone can actually afford to take.

A one size fits all approach to compassion often ends up serving only the people whose grief looks familiar to those in charge.

Inclusive workplaces pay attention to the full person, not just their output. Grief support is a test of that principle in practice.

Consider a few realities that rarely make it into HR policy:

• Bereavement leave in many organisations is built around a narrow definition of family, often excluding chosen family, close friends, or extended kinship networks that are central in many cultures.

• Mourning rituals vary enormously. Some communities observe extended periods of formal mourning; others expect a swift return to daily life. Neither is more valid than the other, but policies written with only one model in mind can leave people feeling unsupported or, worse, judged.

• Grief is not limited to death. Miscarriage, pregnancy loss, estrangement, migration, and the loss of a role or identity can all trigger a grief response, yet these are frequently unacknowledged in workplace frameworks.

• Employees from marginalised groups may already feel they have to prove their resilience constantly. Grief can compound that pressure, making people less likely to ask for what they need.

  
  

A genuinely inclusive approach to grief starts by widening the lens on what loss looks like and who experiences it.

What Colleagues and Managers Can Actually Do

Supporting someone through grief rarely requires grand gestures. It requires consistency, humility, and a willingness to follow the grieving person's lead rather than a script.

Ask, don't assume. Every grief is different, and so is every person's preference for how they want to be treated at work. Some people want to talk about their loss; others want a return to normal routine as quickly as possible. A simple, private question, such as asking what would be most helpful right now, does more good than a well-meaning guess.

Make the return to work an actual conversation, not an assumption. A short, private check-in before someone comes back, covering workload, meeting load, and whether they want colleagues to be told anything, can prevent an awkward and isolating first day back.

Protect capacity without announcing it. Quietly redistributing urgent deadlines or covering a few meetings does more than a public statement of support. Grief already asks a person to manage a great deal privately; the workplace does not need to add public scrutiny to that load.

Avoid comparison and false comfort. Phrases like "at least" or comparisons to other losses, however well intentioned, tend to minimise what someone is feeling. Simple acknowledgement, such as naming that you are sorry for their loss and that you are there if needed, tends to land better than advice.

Recognise that grief is not linear. A colleague may seem fine for weeks and then struggle badly around an anniversary, a birthday, or a seemingly unrelated trigger. Ongoing, low key check-ins matter more than a single burst of support immediately after the loss.

Be mindful of language and assumptions around family and ritual. Not everyone mourns in the same way, and not everyone's grief is for a relationship that fits the standard definitions used in HR paperwork. Leaders should be cautious about assuming what "counts" as a legitimate loss.

What Organisations Can Build Into Policy and Culture

Individual kindness matters, but it should not be the only safety net. Structural support makes compassion sustainable and consistent, rather than dependent on which manager someone happens to have.

• Review bereavement policies to ensure they reflect diverse family and kinship structures, not just legally recognised next of kin.

• Offer flexibility in how leave can be used, recognising that mourning rituals and timelines vary across cultures and faiths.

• Train managers on trauma informed, culturally responsive conversations, so that support does not depend on individual instinct alone.

• Normalise conversations about grief in general, including pregnancy loss, estrangement, and other forms of loss that are often left unspoken.

• Signpost to professional support, such as an employee assistance programme, without treating that as the end of the organisation's responsibility.

Grief will find its way into every workplace eventually, because it is simply part of being human. The organisations that handle it well are not the ones with the most polished policy document. They are the ones where people trust that their full humanity, including their losses, will be met with care rather than discomfort.

That trust is built slowly, through small, consistent acts of attention. It is, in many ways, inclusion at its most fundamental: making room for people exactly as they are, especially when they are carrying something heavy.

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