What to say to work colleague who is losing a child

[Gofastboatsmojito]

Hi,

Not sure of the right place to post so I hope this is OK here. Bereavement felt intrusive of me

A work colleague, I'm his manager, is likely losing a teenage child this year. I'd really appreciate some guidance from any one who is kind enough to share some wisdom about what to say or what to avoid

I will speak to HR at work too but they can be quite robotic, and really i want to be the best human I can be when it happens so it's that side I'm after advice for.

Thanks

Agreed, this is good. He might not want to speak about it at work (I know I don’t about my poorly mum) so I wouldn’t go OTT but something short like this would be lovely.

I would take him aside for a chat and say you don’t want to over step, but wanted to check if there was anything as a workplace you could do to support - for instance if you have a decent sick pay policy is it work him being signed off with stress for a while so he can spend time at home (bearing in mind he might want to take a sizeable chunk post bereavement), does he want his load lightened at all, would it help him to know a contingency is ready in place for when he does go off etc. Basically asking him what would help to make things easier at work so he can focus on home life if that’s what he wants to do. As others have said, flexibility to come and go if he needs to etc and attend appointments.

Use the child’s name when you talk about them. That’s just one tiny thing that will show you care. Make sure they know they can come to you if they are not able to concentrate fully on work or need some time off. Get all the facts from HR on what their bereavement leave entitlement is and how much they will be paid over this time. Fight to offer as much as possible. Cut them slack where possible.

My son's teacher 's dd died suddenly. I made a note of the anniversary and her birthday and always send a card.

I agree with the person who said she struggled when people become overly emotional about her loss. I work in palliative care and I have to remember during the sadder stories that I have a role to play that is to support the families around their grief, not to grieve myself. I think if I was having these conversations I would want you to be prepared with answers on essentially how to have the longest time off while still be paid. I feel you would be the go between for HR (protecting the company) and the employees needs (you know them and can advocate for them).

I think I would also be prepared to be surprised. People's responses to death can be really unexpected and it could be that the employee wants to keep working to keep a sense of normality. Support your employee to decide what works for their family and that may change as things progress. It would be helpful to have a backup plan for work incase something happens last minute, there shouldn't be pressure on them to be absent when required.

I disagree with a lot of advice on here. Don't ask open ended questions like 'what can I do to help', 'let me know what we can do'. It's really hard to ask for help, especially in a work scenario and they don't know what they can and can't ask for without looking 'cheeky'. I'd offer the specific help the you can actually give, i.e. we can be flexible with your start/end time, can arrange last-minute cover, can offer WFH'. Acknowledge it ONCE, and then don't bring it up again unless they do, even checking for updates can feel unwelcome and intrusive for some (but I obviously can't speak for all). As someone else said they likely want their work life to remain normal, and don't want the pity looks or grief vampires hovering.

Thanks for all the replies and interesting to see where different people advise different approaches. It qoukd be ao much easier if everyone were the same

Thankfully we work for an employer with decent time off and there is no question about him taking as long as he needs off, this has been going on for a while and he's had some spells of leave already. In general he values work being something different outside of family life which he can focus on so i imagine it will be more a case of trying to get the balance of enforced time off rather than letting him do his hours every week, but we'll see

I'm more after advice about specifics which would be welcome when it actually happens

Somehow it seems tactless to say 'I can't imagine how your family are feeling' as it emphasises they're going through it and I'm not.

I've heard the one about not giving open ended offers of help before and it rings true, but as his manager I'm not sure what is appropriate to say from one human to another.

He's definitely finding it all really hard (of course) and I think there is a risk of unprofessional behaviour when things get harder, which is a complication we really don't need.

When I suffered a loss, after having been off a few months to care for my family member, my manager messaged me and just said I'm so sorry, please know you're all in my thoughts. If there is anything I can do to support you in anyway, please don't hesitate to contact me.

They arranged flowers to be sent which arrived addressed to me and family and she and some of my colleagues came to the funeral. I found that all very supportive.

From personal experience albeit my husband died - counselling. My employer doesn’t extend private counselling to my department, but my husbands employer very generously extended the cover they offered my husband to include me, and have continued to do so for a year after his death. It has been a life saver.
Your employer may have a similar scheme? If so you can be prepared by having the relevant information directly to hand.

Make them aware of the employee assistance programme? And HR policies for time off etc

You sound like a kind and compassionate manager. I wouldn't have found that tactless. When I had a significant and sudden bereavement, what I found tactless was people trying to relate and telling me about their elderly grandfather's death. Sad but very very different to suddenly losing a young person. I think it's ok to say that you can't imagine rather than pretend that you can.

My manager wasn't great but a couple of practical things that helped. A phased return so I worked fewer, shorter days completely remote for a while, built up more days but still WFH, slowly adding in a day in the office until I was back to my usual working pattern. My manager also set me a discreet project for the first couple of weeks - something that needed to be done but that I could do at my own pace without having to involve other people or explain why I'd been off work etc.

But my manager didn't tell people why I'd been off so I kept having to tell it over and over again. One colleague thought I'd been holiday and kept making snidey remarks. It was incredibly painful to retell and relive. Ask him if he wants people to know some of what's been going on.

It's so difficult and so individual, and unfortunately whatever you do you won't get it right but thinking about it shows that you care.

Will also add that the loss of a child is very different from the loss of a partner or parent. All are devastating, of course, but there's a very different dynamic with a child and some aspects are very taboo. People experiencing child loss and find it very hard to speak about openly. Others have useful advice from their experiences of parents dying but I might advise you that it might not be appropriate in your experience. I am a former hospice nurse.

I'd let him take the lead and ask him what he needs from you as a manager and make it clear to him not to worry about work and anything you can do to make things easier for him to let you know

When my dad died unexpectedly (so slightly different I know) I was in my early 20s, my mum and dad were late 50s. They had a big strong network of friends and as dad had his own business there were lots of people affected by his death.
lots of people offered help and said anything you need, just ask, but that wasn’t particularly easy, especially after the first week or two as people forgot and were carrying on with their own lives.
The most useful things for mum were one of her family friends - the husband - also a good business man - who said ‘ I’m sure there must be lots of financial things going on that you need help with. I don’t know the specifics but I use this chap to advise me with my investments but I’m seeing him next week so I’ve asked him to stay behind and talk to you for as long as you need to, if you want - either just to see where to go and what to do in the short term or for longer term. There’s no charge; I’m a very good customer of his and I trust him implicitly, the meeting room is available all day so you’re not hurried’. He ended up being a really useful help to mum, especially in being an impartial adviser (turned out family solicitor was also family business solicitor, so remained as family business solicitor, meaning mum suddenly needed to find new solicitors, so having a trusted independent to help guide her was invaluable. Also the husband of her cousin gave her the details of his financial adviser to help with the more day to day side of things and again, just arranged for her to meet them, no pressure, when she started being messed around by some banks who were being particularly unhelpful and milking her accounts.
More immediately after dad’s death, it was those friends that turned up with a pot plant (not flowers - people only have a limited number of vases and you don’t want to be stressing about ‘ wasting’ flowers because you done have anything to put them in), jars of coffee, boxes of tea bag’s and tins of nice biscuits as well as tasty picky bits that would last as they knew that there would be lots of visitors dropping in to offer condolences so it was nice to offer a drink and biscuit or snack, plus grief is funny - you don’t know when or how you’ll feel hungry and you often won’t want to start shopping for and then cooking meals - so having some tempting bits in to snack on is useful as well as meals that you can just warm up.
I’ve subsequently come across this sort of help referred to as ‘death shopping’ (I think - can’t find the actual article I read it in!) and it’ss very practical but under- utilised way of supporting someone when a loved one dies - basically acknowledging that they will be so overloaded with everything that asking them to make decisions about what help they need is y too much - just step in and do some things that you can think of that you can see will be useful (eg the extra tea, coffees, biscuits and snacks) - just deliver them as they will get used. Much easier just to hand over a bag and for them to say thank you thank to make them think about it. Hollie it up with saying that they can ask you for any other help but also suggest that you will be back in a few days time with another similar bag in case they have run out and that you will let them know before you go to the shop in case there’s anything else that they want you to pick up - again to take away the mental load of having to think about it when their mind is spinning off in other directions.

Two of my children have died. When my son died my employer was awful, she cried, took me aside for emotional chats, and I just wanted to go into work and not be the person everyone head tilted at and whispered about. I ended up leaving soon after because she would walk past and constantly ask if I was OK, or give me pitying looks all the time.

The second boss I had looked at all my rights, leave, what the company could offer. He arranged a meeting and told me that he would do all he could, as a boss, told me what leave I could take, what I could claim, and all the practical stuff I needed to know, and then told me he was very sorry for what I was going through, acknowledged the situation was really shit, and told me to just arrange a meeting if there was anything I needed from him or the company at all and then just treated me as usual which I appreciated a lot. He also made sure to remember the anniversary and offer me first refusal of AL that week.

To be honest I don’t think there is anything specifically you need to say or do as a “human”, as nothing kind you can say will trigger any positive result for him. It will be shit regardless of your best wishes if that makes sense. Just be yourself, no point giving him lots of platitudes if that is not your normal personality- it may come across as insincere. Like be careful not to overstep as it might not land right - everyone is different

as his manager ensure he’s aware of what work can do to support him, and what other support he can be signposted to allow him to make informed decisions. Agree how you will keep in touch and what level of involvement he would like with work. Eg there may be certain work he finds stressful and wouldn’t mind stopping temporarily. Equally there might be work or projects he would like to do to keep his mind off things.

One of the worst ironic moments of life is when you are working long hours while a loved one is fading away then you are offered time off to faff about the house when they are gone. Do everything to facilitate his time off now. Ask him to talk to you directly about what way he wants to work for the coming months / weeks and say you will liaise with HR and advocate as much as possible.

It's actually so sad even reading this thread.

Another idea would be to reassure him that he can just up and leave without notice if he feels overwhelmed or gets bad news without having to discuss it in the moment. I was anticipating bad news once and had a one to one with my manager. She told me if she sees me walk out then she knows it's my time and she won't expect me to engage there and then and she would inform the rest of the team what was going on. It really helped.

Again- slightly different for a partner or parent, but one of the other really useful things that someone did for mum was to just give her an ordinary plain A4 notebook - not the sort of thing that she ordinarily had to had or would think about getting or using - but told her to use it to write everything down as she went. There is so much that happens around death that until it happens to someone you love you’re just not aware of - that professionals involved can assume you know things that are common practice to them, that you don’t, or that you think you’ll remember the details but then you end up with so much to remember that some details slip through…
If she rang anyone - with the time and name and teleport number down.
If anyone rang her - write down time and date and brief details of conversation.
Any important forms or dates or anything that came through the post or meetings - write it all down. Keeping a contemporaneous journal of everything is incredibly useful for keeping on top of everything and also means that you keep track of reference numbers and phone numbers and names of people you talk to that you might need to talk to again or refer to at a later point in time.

So make sure your employee has a spare big day book to hand that he can use when the time comes, without making a big song and dance about it, just so that it’s available without him needing to think about buying one or sourcing one (and maybe making sure that there’s one available for each surviving family member to help them get through) - again it’s taking the mental load off the bereaved person and making their life easier in ways that they might not have thought of.

when my aunt died recently, dsis and I were executors and were both got notebooks to use to keep a track of everything in - I ended up with 2; one for during the wake and one for the estate details - I kept each A5 notebook in a zipped file with a pen to keep papers safe and it meant I could always grab what I needed when I needed on the go - made life much easier!

Not really relevant for you as you are his manager but when my son's teacher's dd died the head teacher kept sending apologetic emails about the supply teachers that kept leaving after a week or 2. I made a point of telling him at school pick up that we didn't mind and that the most important thing was that the teacher was being supported. The head teacher often taught the class himself as well and still does sometimes.

When my dd died, my work were spectacularly shit. My boss asked when we could do a handover and then told me to get signed off if I needed more than 5 days off.

So, aside from offering whatever time off he needs before/ after:

• do not say ‘I can’t imagine how you feel’. If you have dc you can.
• do not say something alone the lines of ‘I couldn’t carry on/ it’s my worst nightmare’
• don’t ask how you can help. In these moments, it’s often too much for the person to think and suggest something
• do send a meal hamper from the team (cook etc)
• do say you will wait for them to be in touch, and perhaps get in contact fortnightly to say you are thinking of them (and no need to reply)
• do offer a phased return to work
• do ask what they would like other people to be told (eg I wanted people to not ask questions when I returned to work. I was barely functioning and talk of dd’s death would have pushed me over the edge)
• do note down significant dates and try to remember in future. It was the anniversary of dd’s death last week and not a soul (including the same manager, whose birthday is the same day) said anything

Sorry that’s long! I feel strongly about how good/ bad this type of support can be and the difference it can make in the darkest moments.

I personally would say
"Hey, just checking in. I'm really sorry you are all having such a tough time. I know there's not much I can say or do to help but please know I'm here for you"
Ideally you could speak to your HR and make sure they can take off as much time as possible without the stress and worry about if they have a job to return to.
Obviously I don't know the situation, but maybe a whip round for hospital parking, cafe food, vouchers for dinner. When my mum was poorly I probably spent half of my wages on petrol and parking.
Edited to add*
Make sure they know there's no pressure now, or when it happens. No pressure to work, no pressure to be ok, no pressure to talk. Just check in regularly but genuinely not like "oh it's Monday, let's send a message'. It's impossible to know how to help once it happens as everyone deals with death in different ways. Some people need fussing, some people hate it

That's a bit odd tbh.

Thanks so much for these additional posts, they've given me so much more to think about and prepare for when the time comes

I have been trying to reassure him to take whatever time he wants to spend time with his child for those advising that, thanks for the prompt to continue to do this.

It's all so awful and I know I can't make it better but I can not make it worse iyswim