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Dr. Jennifer Levin (00:02)
Everyone provides support immediately. What about three months later? What about six months later? What about during the holiday party?

JoDee Curtis (00:16)
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, and with me is my friend and co-host Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting, an HR consulting practice. Susan is also a senior executive collaborator with Purple Ink.

Our topic today is “Beyond Bereavement Leave: Rethinking Grief Support as a Strategic Business Priority.” Today, we’re diving into this topic that’s often overlooked in organizational strategy.

Not just the kind that follows a personal loss, but the kind of grief that ripples through teams and workplaces after a sudden or traumatic event. Whether it’s a suicide, overdose, health crisis, accident, or act of violence, the emotional toll on employees can be profound and long-lasting.

According to the National Safety Council, there were over 4,500 preventable work-related deaths in 2023, alongside 740 workplace homicides and suicides. While these numbers represent a slight decline from the previous year, the rate of intentional deaths remains unchanged. That is signaling a persistent crisis in workplace safety and mental health.

The AFL-CIO’s 2024 report, “Death on the Job: the Toll of Neglect,” reveals that workplace homicides and suicides rose by 9% and 13%, respectively, from 2021 to 2022. These figures are likely undercounted as many incidents go unreported or are misclassified. Industries such as construction, transportation, and agriculture continue to see the highest fatality rates, with agriculture reaching 20 deaths per 100,000 workers.

Adding to this complexity is the rise in opioid-related deaths among employees. A 2025 report from Quest Diagnostics found that fentanyl positivity in random workforce drug tests was 707% higher than in pre-employment screenings. Isn’t that crazy?

Susan White (03:07)
That’s awful.

JoDee Curtis (03:08)
Yeah. Alarmingly, 60% of those tests also showed co-positivity with other substances like marijuana and amphetamines. These trends suggest that grief, trauma, and emotional distress may be driving substance misuse in the workplace, and often silently.

So as we may rethink bereavement leave, it’s time to consider grief support, not just as a compassionate gesture, but as a strategic business priority that affects retention, productivity, and organizational trust.

So what do we do when one of these tragedies impacts our own workspace? Well, we have invited a guest today, Dr. Jennifer Levin, to help us answer these questions. Dr. Levin is a nationally recognized expert in traumatic grief and sudden loss, and she helps organizations and individuals respond to unexpected loss with compassion and structure.

As founder of Traumatic Grief Solutions, she provides crisis response consulting, grief leadership training, and trauma-informed coaching for executives and HR leaders to reduce the long-term emotional and financial costs of sudden workplace loss.

Susan White (04:47)
Jennifer, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (04:50)
Thank you for having me.

Susan White (04:52)
Absolutely. So Jennifer, you’re one of fewer than 300 mental health professionals worldwide recognized as a Fellow in Thanatology, the study of death, dying and bereavement. How or why were you attracted to this kind of a fellowship?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (05:09)
Yeah, thank you for asking. Actually, I think the number’s gone up a little bit. I chaired the application review process. So that fellowship comes from the Association of Death Education and Counseling, which is a national — actually it’s an international organization. And one of the things I love about them is that they offer these credentials, both the CT and the FT, to really recognize individuals who have expertise, knowledge, experience, education in thanatology.

And, you know, one of my hats is a therapist and sometimes when you’re a therapist, you have this little checkbox of what do you specialize in, and a lot of times people will say grief and loss and without any formal training. And so what really affected me is that you have to take an exam, you have to show all of the stuff that you’ve done. I learned a ton, even more when I was going through the whole process. It’s — anybody who works from any part of thanatology, I highly, highly recommend that that’s something that they pursue.

Susan White (06:26)
I’m so glad to learn about it today, so thank you.

JoDee Curtis (06:29)
Yeah.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (06:29)
So if you want to know more, go to the Association for Death Education and Counseling website.

Susan White (06:35)
Thank you.

JoDee Curtis (06:36)
Nice, thank you. And how does that expertise inform your work with corporations, nonprofits, educational institutions who may be facing loss in the workplace?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (06:49)
Yeah, so I specialize in traumatic grief in the workplace and I work a lot with HR leaders and executives as well, both in navigating a crisis that’s just occurred and they don’t quite know how to respond or in helping them prepare in advance for something that may occur.

And, you know, we don’t leave our personal lives at home. You know, it used to be more of that was what was expected, but it’s just not realistic. And things have become so much more complicated in our world. And so my background, my knowledge really helps me show, helps me take the feelings that business leaders and HR professionals have and put them into action.

Because a lot of times we are so concerned about somebody or something horrific has happened, but we don’t know what to do. We don’t want to overreact. We don’t want to underreact, don’t want to say the wrong thing. So we don’t do anything at all. Sending a card or flowers is helpful, but this grief lasts a really long time.

And one of the things I like to say is grief doesn’t even begin until after bereavement leave. Because when you go out for bereavement leave, you are making arrangements and dealing with logistics and you’re just kind of in this numb, chaotic, depending on whatever the circumstances are. And it’s not really till you go back into your life that you have to learn how to live with grief. And that shows up in the workplace.

Susan White (08:09)
Gosh, I think that’s really profound, right? The new normal, how do you go on? So Jennifer, you wrote a book, “The Traumatic Loss Workbook,” and it focuses specifically on the impact of a sudden or unexpected loss. What makes this kind of grief different from the other types of loss?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (08:51)
Again, I’m so glad you asked that because anyone who’s experienced a sudden or unexpected death often feels so isolated that other people don’t understand why their death or their person was different. So there’s several things. One, there’s often not an opportunity to say goodbye. It happens suddenly and in the workplace it’s like, wait, my colleague was just here yesterday, now they’re gone? So there’s no opportunity.

Many times it’s out of the natural life cycle. So it’ll happen to somebody who’s younger. You know, I’ll hear things like, they had three kids, a family, all of that. And so that just makes it very, very different. Many times it can be prevented. If it’s a suicide, I deal with so much in the workplace. If it’s an accident, it’s an overdose. Many of those things could be prevented at some level.

You know, those unexpected health crisises, heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms, maybe not so much. But so knowing, my gosh, if I had done something differently, when we go into that cycle, I just give a talk on shame, blame, and guilt after a sudden unexpected death. So we have those types of things.

Many times a loved one or the person we cared about suffered, you know, the death, the circumstances, and so having to live with that. And then it’s traumatic in the way that it happens. And again, depending on the individual circumstances, the person who was involved, the loved one, the survivor, may experience symptoms of trauma afterwards.

And whether we’re talking rumination, thinking about things over and over, hypervigilance, always being on the edge waiting for the next shoe to drop, flashbacks, nightmares, all of those feeling unsafe in the world, which happens because the assumptions that — something called the Theory of Shattered Assumptions — have been shattered.

And so it completely impacts every aspect of your life when you’ve had a sudden or unexpected death because these things are so different and it shows up in the workplace. Any death shows up in the workplace. You know, your mom dies, your pet dies, it shows up in the workplace, but especially after something that’s happened sudden or unexpectedly.

Susan White (11:21)
Yeah, thank you.

JoDee Curtis (11:21)
Yeah.

Jennifer, what are some of the emotional and financial costs of sudden loss in the workplace?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (11:30)
So there are big ramifications for both. They’re really big. So I think the number is that each year the United States loses over $100 billion to grief-related absenteeism, loss of productivity, and turnover. That’s a huge, huge number. And because it’s estimated that each grieving employee will take up to 30 days off… Are you familiar with the phenomenon presenteeism?

Susan White (11:58)
Oh, sure.

JoDee Curtis (11:58)
Yes.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (11:58)
So then you’ve got presenteeism, people coming to the office, but again, now grieving, so decisions that — poor decisions being made, mistakes, all of that hits the bottom line of a business.

But employees, I mean, the person who is grieving, there are physical experiences. Many people don’t realize how physical grief is. Headaches, stomach aches, body aches, not being able to sleep, change in appetite, problems that you had before now coming back and exaggerated. It changes emotions. They become often dysregulated. So one moment, again, in this high anxiety state, perhaps the next moment a very depressive or sad state.

Cognition is very important in the workplace. Not being able to think clearly, not remembering things, not being able to make decisions, all of those type of things. And then it also goes into, changes how we behave. We can isolate, withdraw, especially if we’re not feeling supported or that no one understands us.

Sometimes we engage in high-risk behaviors, like, you know, so, well, it doesn’t matter, I don’t even care if I live or die, which I see all the time, so I might as well do this or that. And then it even impacts us spiritually and our religious belief systems and existentially. And so I don’t think we realize what a huge impact it has. And so your employees are your biggest asset and if you’re not supporting them well through all aspects of their life, they are not going to be able to show up and give you the best that they can.

JoDee Curtis (13:52)
Yeah.

Susan White (13:52)
I think that’s really fair. So Jennifer, let’s, you know, clearly there is such disruption and disorientation that can happen in the workplace for people that go through some type of loss or terrible trauma, traumatic loss. What should leaders be thinking about doing? What can we do to help rebuild the psychological safety in the workplace?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (14:13)
One of the things that happens is, you know, there’s this acknowledgement after there’s been a death and, you know, whether it be flowers, attending the funeral. By the way, going to an employee’s funeral is, like, the best way you can show trust and loyalty to one of your employees and invest them. So having HR show up or the CEO says so much, I care. We care, you’re a person. But after two weeks, it’s life back to normal.

And so the biggest way, and I have something that’s coming next year to hopefully help with the situation, is to remember that grief, there’s a study by empathy.com that shows the average amount of time for grief is 10 months. I think that’s incredibly underestimated and it’s longer, it’s longer, well, remember I deal with sudden and unexpected. And so a lot of the individuals I work with will go on and have something called Prolonged Grief Disorder.

But, so constantly acknowledging and checking in. Everybody rallies, everybody provides support immediately. What about three months later? What about six months later? What about during the holiday party? First Christmas without your — or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever — without a loved one is so hard and when everybody’s in this festive cheer. Depression is the highest during the holiday season. And so remembering that, hey, this person is not okay.

And one of the things I hear so much is how I am on the outside doesn’t reflect on how I am on the inside. And that’s exhausting because you have to be okay. Everybody expects it. They don’t want to hear about it. You know, you get condolences for a while, but after that, you know, I don’t want to be the downer. And so if somebody says, hey, this must be a hard time for you. How are you really doing? That goes so far.

And then there’s programs and things that — formal programs that workplaces can do. Many workplaces have an EAP, an Employee Assistance Program. And let’s say the death actually occurs in the office setting, which is one of the things that I focus on. You get the EAP, they come out the first couple of days. Hardly anyone goes because nobody’s got their mind around what’s just happened and they’re numb and everything.

It’s providing that support three months down the line. Now that we’ve been living with this, have a conversation. How is this really showing up? And so even making it okay to talk about it and acknowledging it, that changes the whole culture right there. You know, the messages — and they have to start from the top.

JoDee Curtis (17:22)
I’m so glad to hear you recommend leaders or coworkers go to the funeral or the funeral home. My dad died almost 32 years ago now, and I can still remember the people I worked with who came to see me when my dad died. And that, and it was — We were an hour and half, almost two hours away, you know, the city of where I worked and where my dad was. So it wasn’t like it was easy to just drop by over lunch or during a break. And I’ve always remembered that, how important to me that was at the time. So I think that’s great advice. Yeah. Yeah.

Susan White (18:10)
Beautiful.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (18:11)
Yeah, yeah, you felt really seen.

JoDee Curtis (18:16)
Right, right, I did. So you talked about some of the things that organizations should do. What are some of the missteps, even if unintentional, I’m sure, many times, that organizations might make in these situations?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (18:34)
Yeah, so that’s a broad question in terms of — let’s just first put it in the context of an employee who just went out on bereavement leave and comes back. So one of the things they often don’t do is have a, depending on who it was that died, don’t have a conversation with them before they come back or as they come back in terms of how comfortable. What do you want people to say to you? How do you wanna be spoken to about that?

I mean, there’s this misconception that, well, I don’t wanna bring it up, because I don’t wanna upset them. I guarantee you they’re thinking about it anyway. Sometimes people go back to work really quickly, because it’s a sense of normalcy, and it’s very distracting and helpful, and so they might say to you, I’m really glad to be back. I need this, I need normalcy. I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about it. People can just say, how are you doing?

Or other people come back and they’re just like, I am so struggling, but this, you know, I worked with an executive whose daughter unfortunately took his life, her life, and it was a complete shock, surprise, and he didn’t really talk about it and he didn’t want anyone to bring it up to him. And so kind of just having that conversation, that doesn’t really happen. And ideally, if it’s not, if it’s, you know, a three-day quick leave, because we don’t provide a lot of time, but to reach out before that and say, how can I help you transition back? So that’s one thing.

What type of accommodations — and some more places are getting really good at this. What kind of accommodations do you need? Do you need extra time? Do you need flexibility in your schedule? And again, depending on the workplace, this may or may not be possibility. But even just asking that.

One of the things I often say is never put on the greeting person to ask for what they need. So even if you’re supporting somebody, even outside of the workplace who just had a death, call me if you need anything. No, no, no, no, no. They’re not going to. 95% of the time, they’re not going to. Instead, would it be helpful if I pick the kids up for you? Could we bring dinner over and leave it in front of your doorstep on Friday night? Can my son come over and mow your lawn? And so…

If you’ve just had this traumatic death, you don’t even know what you need. You don’t even know how you’re going to get through your day. So putting that onus on anyone is so awful. And so for HR and for leaders to say, well, just tell us what you need. So to say things like, these are some things we are able to do. What of these might be helpful?

So because, you know, I don’t want to lose my job. I need my job. You know, I don’t want to be passed up for a promotion. And even saying, this is a human experience you’re going through. We want to support you and this has no impact on your work career or how we… you know. So acknowledging that, because those are fears. What if I ask, is this a sign of weakness? Are they going to think that I can’t do my job? So having those conversations.

JoDee Curtis (22:04)
Right, right.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (22:07)
Again, if something traumatic happens, just to be going back to normal too soon. I hear so many times things else’s life is moving on and they’ve forgotten what’s happened in mine. And so HR, just checking in. And even if it’s just an email, because you don’t want to bother the person or whatever, I know it’s been a month since you’ve been back. I imagine there’s been ups or downs. I am here any time, I have not forgotten. That’s, like, all you have to do. My door is open at three months. And so just…

Susan White (22:42)
Hmm. Beautiful.

JoDee Curtis (22:47)
Yeah.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (22:51)
…you know, that resuming normal and we’re all going back.

The other thing is training. Have some training. Managers struggle so much. How do I support a grieving employee who has responsibilities? So there’s training. One of the things that we do all of that at Traumatic Grief Solutions is we provide training in advance. That report I was telling you by empathy.com says 25% of your workforce is grieving at any time. So one in four. So even if nothing isn’t happening, tell them anyway. Get some training in.

Susan White (23:29)
I think you’ve given really good practical ideas. If you are a leader of an organization listening to this episode, what does leadership need to do in order to make sure that this organization is one that when horrible things happen and traumatic things happen, they don’t merely survive, the employees don’t survive it, but they actually come out stronger and better connected.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (23:55)
So the way you do something like that is you plan ahead. It’s not an if, it’s a when. Somebody is going to have a heart attack, a stroke, an accident, whether it be at work, whether it be on vacation, whether it be, you know, on the way home. So plan for it first, because when you make a plan in terms of, what services are we gonna have — Because I guarantee you that EAP for three days isn’t enough, doesn’t cut it.

So, okay, so what are we gonna do besides that and what resources can we have? And we have a whole proactive planning system that we do, but help leaders do that. Leadership get into training, what to say. You don’t say, when my sister died — when an employee shares something and then turn it around to, I know how you feel, when my sister died, or they’re in a better place, or God has a plan.

You know, and so become well-versed in the language of grief. Acknowledge that it’s there. A quarter of your employees are grieving right now.

Susan White (25:09)
I love this. Training is so good in the workplace, but every human can use it in the real life, right? Because every human is going through this and it’s not just confined to work. what’s what I love about this topic is we all could get better at building our own competency around helping others through trauma and grief. So thank you for that.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (25:25)
Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely.

JoDee Curtis (25:29)
And how can our listeners reach out to you if they want more information or to find out more about this topic?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (25:38)
Well, they can reach out to me at my website, Traumatic Grief Solutions, just like it sounds, or Jennifer at Traumatic Grief Solutions. And if you’re interested in the book, the book actually has a course that comes with it, and that’s great for individual, either individual employees or anyone who’s struggling with a sudden or unexpected death. The book is on Amazon, but the online course and everything you can also get at my other website, which is geared towards individuals who’ve experienced a sudden or unexpected death. And that’s called Therapy Heals. that’s T-H-E-R-A-P-Y Heals, H-E-A-L-S dot com.

Susan White (26:21)
I think that’s great. So Jennifer, we do ask all of our guests before they leave us, you know, a JoyPowered® question. And I know this topic is a tough one. So we’re looking for joy in this. So here’s the question. What’s one thing people in this area can do that can help bring joy to what can be a very difficult process?

Dr. Jennifer Levin (26:42)
So after grief, you experience emotions differently. And to me, joy in this is being seen, witnessed, validated, connected, and supported. And we have got you, just don’t worry about it, so employees know we are here for you for the good and bad and there will be moments of joy again but we’re gonna be with you here until then.

Susan White (27:12)
I love that. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today.

JoDee Curtis (27:13)
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. Yeah, really great information. So thank you.

Dr. Jennifer Levin (27:17)
You’re welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

Susan White (27:23)
JoDee, our listener question today came from one of our listeners to one of our monthly podcasts. As always, we welcome questions from listeners. “What is the best practice for reworking an executive comp program that ties to revenue for individuals’ bonuses when you want a more balanced compensation that drives the right executive priority and focus in the organization?”

JoDee Curtis (27:48)
Well, I do think bonuses drive behavior, so you have to be careful what you’re asking for. I remember years ago the company I was working for created a bonus plan. You know, I worked in public accounting for a long time. January to April 15th was a very significant time of a year. I mean, a significant portion of the revenue for the entire year was actually earned in those first three and a half months.

And one year they said, if you have X number of billable hours by April 15th, you’ll get a bonus. Well, let me tell you, I don’t know anyone in the thousand person plus firm who didn’t get a bonus that year. We all met our billable hour goals. Now, some of that was because we pushed really hard to hit that, you know, hit that amount and we worked a lot of overtime.

But I can also tell you, I would have loved to have seen the numbers on was that billable time actually all billed, right? Because you kind of controlled your own billable hours really. I mean, you were measuring and tracking those yourselves. And I just always wondered if every single person made it, right, that that was the incentive to get the billable hours. And everybody made it, so was that you know, in hindsight, I just always wonder maybe there should have been some other parameters about did it really get billed? Did it really get paid, you know, all those other things.

So I think it’s okay to set a partial goal based on revenue production or net income even, or on total revenue. But I just highly recommend well-defined goals. And typically as it sounds like our listener is finding, you know, that’s the only thing that’s being driven is the one thing the bonus is set out for. So I personally like to see an organizational wide goal, maybe based on total revenue or net income or EBITDA or whatever that is to see team goals so that people will work together.

When people are incented based on individual goals only it becomes a “I meant it for myself” type of goal, not for the team or for the organization. Or of course you could have a combination of all three of those goals combined, but I’m not a fan in most cases of just incenting total revenue. Now, Susan, you have a lot more experience than I do on comp plans and incentives, but do you have different thoughts on that?

Susan White (31:02)
I like everything you said, JoDee, and I think I’m just gonna add a couple of more thoughts. One, I totally agree that reward drives behaviors, and so you’ve gotta be really thoughtful. And I love the fact that our listener is being thoughtful here. Organizations generally wanna grow and if you want people to grow, you wanna pay them to do things that are gonna help the organization grow. So having goals, the bonus goals tied to generating revenue or any of the other factors you mentioned is smart. Reward is going to drive behaviors.

But I do believe every organization has values. What is it that is most important to us? Some organizations about being client focused. Others, it’s going to be about integrity. Others, it’s going to be who knows what. I think it’s really important that your bonus, that’s either the filters that have to be first put on is this person eligible or not? Do they meet living our values?

Or perhaps you, you, you weight them, score them, like you’re weighing their revenue generation or any other factor. Are they living our values? Are they representing us in the way we want them to? So I’d be thoughtful as I build my scorecard to make sure that it is as balanced as can be. Otherwise we get bad behaviors happening.

I’ve seen companies where the whole bonus program was about revenue generation. And you know what? When people have one single focus, all of a sudden they start leaving some of the other values in their rear-view mirror. They are focused on attaining that. They’re gonna do whatever it takes. And it’s not the kind of environment that most organizations want.

JoDee Curtis (32:44)
Yes, yes, agree, agree. Well, now it’s time for in the news. Sudoku Bliss recently surveyed Americans in 40 US cities about their lunchtime work habits. I thought this was very interesting. So Susan, I think we can go back and forth on some of the highlights of his survey.

Susan White (32:46)
I first have to say I love that Sudoku did this because probably they’re hoping people at lunchtime got their pen and paper out and they’re doing Sudoku, right?

JoDee Curtis (33:12)
Right. That’s what I thought too. So 83% of Americans regularly scroll social media during their lunch break.

Susan White (33:30)
That’s higher than I would have thought, but interesting.

JoDee Curtis (33:31)
Me too.

Susan White (33:32)
Yeah, two in five Americans regularly go for a walk or run errands on their lunch break. Love those walkers.

JoDee Curtis (33:40)
Yeah. One in five Americans regularly take a nap on their lunch breaks.

Susan White (33:47)
That’s interesting. One in three Americans say they frequently feel rushed on their lunch break. I was going to think it’s higher than that. I think we all feel rushed, right?

JoDee Curtis (33:54)
I thought so, too. Nearly two in five Americans say they usually stay available for work during their lunch break.

Susan White (34:06)
I’m sorry to hear that. One in six Americans wish they had more flexibility to choose when they take their lunch break.

JoDee Curtis (34:14)
86% of Americans say their employer encourages them to take a lunch break, but only two in five say it’s a paid break.

Susan White (34:25)
I think that’s more, I think that is normal. Most people, most organizations aren’t paying people for their lunch time. Yeah. Interesting facts. Thank you, JoDee.

JoDee Curtis (34:30)
Right, Yeah, I agree.

So thanks for joining us today.

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The code will expire on December 29th, 2026. Again, that’s getjoypowered.com slash shrm to get the code. And it’s going to expire on 12/29/26. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your dedication to the HR profession. Please tune in next time and make it a JoyPowered® day.

Susan White (35:32)
Thank you.