If you are in a business with employees or clients, or an agency providing services to a community, there is something you should know that is inevitable:
Every manager or executive, and every business will eventually be confronted with a bereavement or loss that directly or indirectly affects the people who work for them, or the customers whom they serve.
Banks, insurance companies, lawyers, health care facilities and many other essential services all deal with clients and employees in time of crisis after a significant loss.
Bereavement is not the only significant loss that causes grief. A life threatening situation such as a serious or terminal illness; an accident; a divorce or separation; a financial reversal; disappointment over a lost hope, dream or expectation. There are many losses and life changes that cause people to experience grief, and it is a universal occurrence that every one of us goes through at some point or another, in one way or another.
Learning2Cope provides the education and experience you need to effectively support grieving people after a significant loss.
There is a need to provide information enabling them to understand the grief process and so understand the grieving employee and client. Such understanding will enable the workplace to become more accommodating to the needs of their people, as well as offering an important “value added, beyond the expected service” to clients.
But employees too are affected by grief after a significant loss. Bereavement can be a devastating experience. While it is often affirmed that grief is normal, it is nonetheless troublesome, and often leaves people unable to function at work within acceptable limits.
Months after people think they have it together, the impact of loss can hit home and the grieving person may feel like they are falling apart.
Employers often face a dilemma — wanting to be sympathetic, yet not understanding what is actually going on with their employee; but also having to concern themselves about the effects the situation is having on productivity, co-workers, and customers.