Life happens! Be prepared to support your employees through life-altering events.

It was spring break in my seventh-grade year. My five-year-old little brother, Jimmy, was finally old enough for us to take a real family vacation. Off we sailed on our first Mexican Riviera cruise, paradise! However, Jimmy was really sick. He was pale, lethargic, and falling asleep while he was walking. The ship doctor thought he had hepatitis but it didn’t sit right with my Dad who is a medical professional. So, off the ship and straight to the hospital, we went. April fool’s day, Jimmy was diagnosed with leukemia. He fought his battle with cancer for six years. At eleven years old he lost the battle and I lost my little brother. This is and will remain the hardest chapter of my life.

As an employer, if your employee experienced this, what would you do? My employer at the time was a small retail business. They didn’t have a bereavement policy. They didn’t have paid time off. They didn’t have an employee assistance program. There were no policies and procedures in place. What did they do? They responded with empathy. They told me to come back when I’m ready, no rush. They gave me a month off paid. They provided flowers for the funeral and joined me in support two hours away for the service. When I started to feel ready to come back, they let me do it at my pace. I started by just having lunch with the team. Then I officially came back, was triggered, and couldn’t finish my shift. They didn’t even blink, were completely understanding, and were there to support me in coming back when I felt I was ready. They took the burden off my shoulders of having to worry about my job and they provided a support network. For not having anything in place to support an employee during such a tragedy, they took a people-centered approach and gave me everything I needed and more.

In my career I have had employees pass away, murdered, commit suicide, diagnosed with terminal cancer, become homeless, become victims of abuse, and get in life-altering and ending accidents. We are all experiencing unprecedented times right now with the COVID-19 crisis. Life happens! As an employer, use these best practices to be proactive in how you will support your employees in the event that they experience a life-altering event:

Confidentiality

In the midst of a crisis, it is easy to forget our role to maintain our employees’ confidentiality. Remember, if an employee shares medical information with you about themselves or a loved one it is private confidential information. This can make it challenging to rally up the team to support the employee. My recommendation is that you ask the employee what, if anything, they would like shared with the team to obtain their permission to share any information.

The employee’s co-workers may wish to send a card or gift to the employee and may request their home address. Again, remember your role, it is essential to keep the employee’s personal information confidential. Instead, tell the co-workers that if they provide you with the items you will go ahead and mail it out on their behalf.

Gifts

When the employee experiences a life-altering event, they lose an immediate family member, or if an employee passes away, I recommend sending something to the employee or family on behalf of the company. It is important that you are consistent in all that you do. Decide now, what is your budget to do so? I recommend one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars depending on the company’s finances. Remember, thankfully, this is not an everyday occurrence and not every employee will experience this type of event. Many send flowers, which is nice, but I recommend sending something more useful such as food. There are many fruit and food baskets you can send within this budget. Additionally, you can send a meal with a meal delivery service or simply a pizza.

Meal train

Speaking of food, for some reason when you are dealing with a crisis you often forget to eat and to take care of yourself. Therefore, coworkers will often want to set up a meal train* for the employee. This is a great way to support the employee. I recommend that this is not something that is not set up by the employer or a leader of the employer so that employees do not feel pressure to participate. Also, remember you have to keep the employee’s personal information confidential. Therefore, I recommend asking the employee or their designated family member contact if they have a meal train set up, and if they would be comfortable with co-workers participating. Alternatively, meal train and similar services do offer options for donations and gift cards.

Leaves and accommodations

Leaves and ADA accommodations are complex! There are federal specific leaves, state-specific leaves, leaves that don’t apply to smaller employers, and amidst COVID-19 there have been several changes and additions. If you’re not the designated expert in this area that’s okay. An employee does not have to directly express the need for accommodation or to take a leave. As a leader, you don’t have to know if the employee is eligible but you are responsible to recognize that they may be eligible. If the employee or their family member has experienced a life-altering event, medical or not, I recommend that you refer them to your designated leave and/or accommodation representative.

Paid time off donation

If an employee has a catastrophic illness or injury such as cancer, a major surgery, a serious accident, etc. a great way to assist them in the continuation of income is by allowing donations of paid time off from fellow employees. It is recommended that you have a clear written policy and process. This policy should address what type of event qualifies, who will determine qualification, if there is a maximum amount of paid time off that an employee can receive within a given time frame, an option for the donator to remain anonymous, the minimum increments of hours that can be donated, the calculation methodology, and tax implications (if any.)

Go fund me

It has become very common for someone to set up a GOFUNDME ® page to try to raise funds for someone that may be experiencing a life-altering event or death. You may feel inspired to do so but I strongly recommend that you do not. If a GOFUNDME® page is set up by the employer or leader from the employer other employees may feel forced to donate which is not the intention. Additionally, the person setting up the account receives the money and this can get a little tricky. Instead, I recommend telling the employee or contact for the employee that friends and co-workers would like to assist the employee and family in every way that they can. In the event that they set up a go fund me page to please let you know and you will be happy to distribute the information. In my experience, one hundred percent of the time this has resulted in the family setting up a GOFUNDME® page and passing along the information, much cleaner!

Bereavement

It is recommended that you have a bereavement leave policy for absences related to the death of an immediate family that establishes uniform guidelines for providing paid time off. This policy should dictate who is considered immediate family and how many days will be granted. Some policies state that the company may require verification of the need for leave. It is my personal opinion that this is in bad taste. Yes, some employees may take advantage but polices should be made for the majority of employees and not those few. The employee is grieving and the goal should be to support them and make things as easy as possible.

Most companies I have worked for have provided three to five days of bereavement leave for an immediate family member. Going back to my original example, when my little brother passed away do you think I would be in a place to effectively provide human resources guidance after five days? Of course not, this time allows for a little grieving and time for you to attend funeral services. Some deaths, family or otherwise, hit people harder than others and everyone grieves in their own way and time. In conjunction with your bereavement policy, I recommend having a statement that spells out the options in the event that the person needs additional time off such as requesting a personal leave of absence, utilizing paid time off, and taking time off without pay. You may also wish to consider having a non-family member funeral leave policy allowing one to two days of paid time off.

Employee assistance program

If you do not already offer an employee assistance program you should consider adding this to your benefits package. Employee assistance programs are best known for offering free counseling services to employees. However, there are some really great vendors out there that go above and beyond counseling services by offering legal guidance, financial resources, and work-life solutions such as helping find child or elder care. The idea is to remove roadblocks for employees so that they can be more productive during working hours.

If an employee is going through a life-altering event, they should be referred to the employee assistance program. When employees go through life's heartaches it may also impact their peers at work and it may be appropriate to offer employee assistance to the rest of the team as well.

Many employee assistance programs offer onsite grief counseling, private or in groups. If an employee passes away, I recommend having a grief counselor available onsite for anyone that would like to speak with someone. I have also had the grief counselor address the team with some tips on how to deal with the grief. Typically, employees are not ready for this the day they find out about the death. I recommend waiting a couple days to a week before having anyone onsite. In the interim, all employees should be provided the employee assistance program information to receive private counseling if needed. If you do not have an employee assistance program, I recommend that you look to bring on similar services as needed for your employees.

Co-workers may need support too

Employees can become very close to their co-workers. If the co-worker passes away, gets diagnosed with a terminal illness, or gets in a tragic accident the employee may not be the only one in need of support. For employees that have knowledge of the life-altering event consider having a policy in place that allows some paid time off for co-workers to use. For example, if an announcement was just made that an employee passed away. I would recommend allowing any employee to go home for the rest of the day paid if needed. Additionally, if the life-altering event has become common knowledge don’t forget to offer the employee assistance program or equivalent support.

Security

Sometimes employee’s personal situations can spill over into the workplace. I have had several employees who break up with their significant other and are fearful that they are going to come to their workplace and cause a scene or that have expressed that they are being physically abused etc. When an employee expresses these types of scenarios to you, I recommend taking extra precautions to ensure the safety of all involved. Consider getting a picture of the person that is a potential threat and providing it to the necessary people to ensure they are not allowed in the building. If your entrances are not typically locked, consider keeping them locked until the threat has resolved. If the threat is large you can hire security to be onsite. A safer alternative to this would be to shut down the location for the day or have employees work out of a different site or remote if possible. Additionally, you can call your cities non-emergency police line and ask for police rounding and presence. Depending on the circumstances you may wish to encourage your employee to file for a restraining order. If they choose to not do so and you feel it is necessary to protect your employees some states, such as the state of California, offer a workplace violence restraining order that you can file for as the employer.

Homelessness

Unfortunately, this is a situation that is very hard to help with as an employer. Remember, you want to be consistent in what you provide your employees so setting the employee up in a hotel or providing them with meals probably isn’t possible. One creative way to ensure the employee gets a good meal and to be consistent is to bring in a meal or snack for the entire staff to ensure the employee gets a good meal and order a little extra and offer the employee the leftovers. You should also ensure that the employee knows where the closest shelter is and offer the employee assistance program or equivalent. Another thing that may assist the employee is a payroll advance if that is something that the company already offers to employees.

Given the current COVID-19 crisis it is more important than ever to develop policies and procedures on how your company can support your employees if they experience a life-altering event. It is challenging to know what to do at the moment and being proactive will allow you to ensure you are treating employees with consistency. Life happens, be prepared to put people first, and provide your employees with the empathy and support needed.

* I am in no way associated with GOFUNDME® or “meal train” and do not receive any commissions for any sales related to this post.