Grief at Work: From Self-Advocacy to Compassionate Leadership with Bloomwell Partners

Grief doesn’t pause when you arrive at work, so why do so many workplaces expect us to carry on as if nothing happened?

In this powerful episode of Grief and Light, host Nina Rodriguez is joined by Dr. Mekel Harris and Janet Gwilliam-Wright, co-founders of Bloomwell Partners, a consulting firm transforming how organizations handle grief and loss in the workplace. 

***Watch on YouTube***

Drawing from their personal experiences of loss and their expertise in psychology, leadership, and organizational development, they dive into how employees can advocate for themselves while grieving, and how leaders can meet them with compassion instead of confusion.

From navigating the emotional toll of returning to work after a death, to shaping grief-informed policies and building a workplace culture rooted in empathy, this conversation offers tangible strategies for both individuals and organizations.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to perform while grieving, or if you're a leader unsure how to support a grieving team member, this episode is for you.

Grief Support Resources for the Road:

• Grief Tending Toolkit
• Access our online community

Key Takeaways

• You have agency while grieving at work. Learning to speak up about your needs is part of healing, not a disruption.
• Grief impacts performance, presence, and decision-making. It’s not just emotional, it’s physical and cognitive too.
• Compassionate leadership is a skillset, not a personality trait. It can be learned, practiced, and integrated into team culture.
• Grieving employees often feel robotic and disconnected. Making space for real emotion helps restore connection and trust.
• Grief doesn’t follow a timeline. Long-term care and policy flexibility matter just as much as immediate support.
• Peer support and grief ambassadors can help normalize conversations around loss and reduce isolation at work.
• Organizations that support grief retain talent. Empathy and loyalty go hand-in-hand in the modern workplace.
• Emotional intelligence is essential for today’s leaders. It’s no longer optional; it’s a core competency.

Referenced in this episode:

• Janet Gwilliam-Wright on a mission to build compassionate organizations
• Grieving with Grace: Dr. Mekel Harris' Grief-Informed Approach to Relaxing into the Pain
• 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Grief-Informed Clinician

Connect with Bloomwell Partners:

• growwithbloomwell.com
• bloomwellpartners@gmail.com
• IG: @bloomwellpartners

Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• IG: @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com

Transcript

And I'm imagining a world where we have normalized grief in the workplace, that employee comes back, there's no longer an expectation that one person, aka the manager or supervisor, is the only person here to support, but we're able to expand our awareness of who else is here. Who else is here? And yes, the manager may not be the primary, it may be a colleague, it may be someone else. It's important to also, as much as the grieving person can, be aware.

who else is available.

just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast. My name is Nina Rodriguez and I am your host. And today I'm joined by two returning guests, Dr. Mikkel Harris and Janet Guilham Wright.

You may remember their personal stories of loss from earlier episodes, but today we're focusing on the powerful work that they do together as co-founders of Bloomwell Partners, a firm dedicated to making workplaces more grief-informed and compassionate. This conversation is all about what it means to advocate for yourself while grieving at work and how personal agency, clear communication, and compassionate leadership

can help shape more human workplaces. Let's get into it. With that, I'd like to give both of you a warm welcome back to the Grief in Light podcast.

Thank you so much, Nina. feels like, like I said before, like I'm just sitting on your couch, which I love. So appreciative of the invitation back.

Absolutely couldn't be more thrilled to be here to see you and to have this conversation with the three of us. I'm excited

Yes, this is super exciting. Both of your stories have reached so many people on a personal level. So I love that we get to bring this new perspective and talk about grief in the workplace, which is such a huge topic for people. And this arc of personal agency to compassionate leadership, how do we bridge that gap? So I'm excited to get into it. And you know, you both have personal experiences that shaped your losses. So could you share a moment that stands out from your own grief?

as you perhaps return to work or the experience that you've had with people returning to work. And you could start wherever you'd like.

Yeah, I'll share. So I was working academia. This was in December 2012 when my mom passed away of stage four pancreatic cancer. And my office just happened to be positioned in a corner pocket. And one of the walls of the office was glass. And so you could literally see into my office. And I felt like I was in a little bit of a fishbowl. Of course, what I was hoping for was that people would be able to see.

into that fishbowl and sort of cross over the threshold and offer support. And that didn't happen right away. It took about almost seven to eight months for one of my colleagues to gently knock on the glass and say, can I just come in? And I remember her coming into the office and she said, I have no idea what to say, but can I just sit with you? And that was the first time without her knowing that I had already been thinking about leaving.

my job because I hadn't really received that support that I needed. That was such a pivotal moment and it kept me there for another three years just feeling like there was concern in that space. So yeah, that support really makes a difference to people coming back to the workplace.

Yeah. And for me, I was so young when my mom died that I had a summer job that I started two weeks after she passed away. And I remember feeling so, I was still in shock when I went to work and I was very, I felt very robotic, but also performative. Like I needed to be there and I needed to show up and I needed to be okay for the kids that I was, you know, a summer counselor for. And I remember one day just sitting down.

at the end of a really long, tiring, hot summer day. And I just started to cry. And I had a counselor come over to me and she said, my gosh, I just heard about your mom and I'm so sorry. I can't believe you're here. And I said, I didn't feel like I had a choice. I had to do this. I needed the money. I was preparing to go to school. And she said, if you need anything, just let me know.

And that was the only person who really reached out to me that summer. Everybody else just sort of pretended like it didn't exist. And frankly, I pretended like I tried to pretend like it didn't exist too. I was so, I would say, disassociated from my grief and from what I was actually feeling that I felt like I couldn't tell anybody and I didn't want to be a burden. And so I didn't share it. But as I became a leader many years later,

I remember that person and I remember how I felt and I never want anyone to come into the workplace feeling like that.

Thank you both for sharing and that's so real. I heard the word robotic and feeling like we didn't have a choice. So that is such a confronting feeling for many grievers in the workplace. So I hear you from a personal level and also I'm sorry you experienced that. And thank you for the work that you're doing to change that because ultimately that's what it's about. And what are some challenges in your experience that some people face after they return to work and what would agency look like at the workplace in your opinion?

think one of the major challenges that employees face when they go back to work is just the sheer small amount of time they have to sort of move past the logistical things that come along with death, right? So my last job before I started working for myself, we had a 48-hour bereavement leave. And so my dad passed away. This was in 2020. He died on a Monday. Wednesday, my phone rang.

And they, my supervisor, the acting supervisor at the time said, hey, just wanted to check in and see when you might be coming back to work. And obviously 48 hours, one week, two months, years is not enough time to wrap your mind around these harsh realities. But so I think one of the things that grievers face is just how do I manage all the logistics, funeral planning, contacting family, traveling to the memorial or funeral site, letting people know.

Just wrapping my mind around the reality. It's so difficult to do that. And what the research shows is that a lot of people do come physically back to work, but mentally they're not there because they may have to be on the phone handling a lot of these practical realities that come along with the death.

The other thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that the impact of grief is not just emotional, it's also physical, it's mental, it's cognitive. So all of these things that we think of for ourselves going into a work environment, being productive, performing, communication skills, conflict resolution skills, just those basic interpersonal skills, all of that can be impacted.

by someone's grieving experience. And so it's a really tough transition for a lot of people to go back into that environment and they just don't feel like themselves at all. And what other people are seeing is, wow, like Janet's here, but she doesn't really seem like herself. Well, it's because I'm not. And I think that that's part of a lot of the misunderstanding or

sort of misinterpretation I think that people feel when they come back into the workplace they feel misunderstood if they don't have the support that they need to make that transition back in a healthy way.

Yeah, it's for the

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Now was going to say to the second part of your question, know, how can people engage in their personal agency? I think part of that is realizing that you're not going to be returning to work the same, right? I think societally there's an expectation that you're going to sort of bounce back or kind of come back to what you how and what you were. But I think it's it's wise to realize I've changed. This death has fundamentally shifted who I am at this time and the ways that I'm going to be showing up in the world.

And so given yourself permission to say, it's okay that I'm coming back into this place that's familiar with a new identity of sorts and really embracing the reality of that.

So true, because the feeling of feeling like we're too much, like our grief is too much, like we're overwhelming the workplace on top of everything that we're experiencing. Like you said, we are not the same. Is it reality that people face when reentering the workplace? So what would you say to somebody who perhaps feels like too much, where can they begin to start softening that reentry back into the workplace?

I love that question. To soften the re-entry. That's a beautiful way to put it because I think it does feel hard, feels jagged. It's certainly how I felt and probably you as well, Mikael, like a bifurcated sort of experience. It's discombobulating to feel like I'm grieving so much outside and then the minute I get to the work environment, well, I have to be like a completely different person. That's just not how human beings work.

One of the ways is to really recognize for yourself that this is going to be impactful. It has deep consequences. And to listen to your body, I think really to just tune into what you're feeling and what you need and to try and verbalize that in whatever way you can to your colleagues, to your supervisor.

Yeah.

It's really important to be able to express to them where you're currently at and what you think you may need to soften that transition. And we can get into specifics, but I think it really is important to not try to put the grief aside. Not to say, that's something I'm going to deal with outside of the nine to five or whatever your shift work is, because it doesn't work that way. It's going to come with you into the workplace, and that's okay.

that's normal and natural. So that's one of the things that I would say, but I Michele has lots of other ideas too.

As you were talking, Janet, I flashed back in my mind to this interaction I had with a therapist after my mom died. And this is around the 2014 mark. I remember her introducing me to this Latin phrase, and I'm probably going to butcher the pronunciation of it, but it was, I believe, Contrere a Jéré. And what she said was, as you are reintegrating back into life, social relationships, just the rhythms that you had before your mom died,

think of contraire agerre, which means do the opposite. Like for me, and this was powerful for me because I was that hyperproductive employee who went right back in, didn't really want to face the loss. And so I did everything to look normal and even excessively so. And so her sharing that with me was sort of a recognition like it's okay to do the opposite, right? As a matter of fact, doing the opposite. Like if your mind is telling you,

I need to work an extra hour so that my employees or my coworkers think that I'm really on the ball. Maybe the opposite is I need to leave at seven hours and 30 minutes, right? Don't even take the lunch break or whatever that looks like. And so I think it's important in the terms of agency to realize you're different and it's okay to do different things as you come back to the workplace.

Beautiful. And yes, there's such a gap between a few things like what we think we need, what we should or shouldn't do and how to advocate for ourselves at work, being able to verbalize, hey, this is what I need. So first it's like knowing what you need, honoring that and then verbalizing it. So what's a practical way for somebody to advocate for themselves in the workplace, knowing that

We live in the context of this grief-averse, grief-illiterate society, and that's prevalent in our workspaces, which is why these conversations are important. So what would you say to this, let's say, a new griever who needs to advocate for themselves?

Yeah, this is tough because I'm feeling conflicted even thinking this. think it's so difficult for someone grieving to have the energy to tell people what they need. And societally, I think there's an expectation that the griever tell everyone else how to be supported, which is exhausting. At the same time, I do think that there needs to be some sort of exercising.

of agency, even if it is today's my first day, week back at work, I probably need to meet with my acting supervisor, a leader, HR, if only to understand the policies and procedures of my job, which a lot of people don't know, right? Why would you ask about bereavement at an interview? I would now, Janet would now.

Grievers would, but I think the average person's not thinking that. So if only scheduling an appointment to sort of get the facts and understand what your rights are within that organization is a great place to start.

Yeah, and I think too, this is really where we like to talk about grief-informed leadership, compassionate leadership, developing an empathetic approach to management. This is where leaders need to step into this space. Because when you have somebody who has experienced a significant loss, regardless of the type of loss, it's really important to educate yourself on what your organization's policies and procedures are.

because leaders may not know that either. So if you don't know, you may not be able to provide that information to your employee. So really important to educate yourself there, but also to remember that you're in partnership with your employee. This is a relationship that you hopefully have developed a good rapport that's based on trust and to have that conversation and to put that forward to say, I don't want to presume to know what you need.

let's talk about in the context of the work that you do, some of the flexibilities that we might be able to offer you and have that conversation and really allow that person if they can to step into that conversation to say, you know, these are some of the things that I might need or these are some of the things that might work for me. So you're not making assumptions, but you're opening the door to a conversation about flexibility, adaptability, and also communicating, I care about you.

I care about your well-being. I want you to do well coming back. I know you're having a difficult time. So these are all really important messages that can help the griever's nervous system just hopefully calm down a bit because it's stressful. Grieving is stressful as we know and coming back into a work environment where we're not sure if we're going to be able to meet some expectation is also really stressful as well.

Yeah.

love that you mentioned keeping the door open. It's a conversation. It's a two-way street, which sometimes we lose sight of because our world has been turned upside down and we don't know exactly where to start. So it's a good reminder that we start with checking in and also checking with our team, looking at our employer as part of our team in that sense and seeing what are our options, what is available. And a lot of people default to the thinking that

bereavement leave or grief support at work is a few days off. Like, instead of three, we'll give you a week off and you're welcome. besides time off or in addition to time off, what does grief support in the workplace look like and what does compassionate leadership look like in practice?

Yeah, I think one of the ways that this can look is talking about the workload. So again, returning, I'm not the same. There may be that employee who's grieving, who's like, yes, I can handle the load. But of course, there's going to be ongoing conversations about my capacity to do so. And it may be, again, this is not the leader saying, hey, we don't think you can handle it. We're going to reduce your workload. Everything is collaborative.

So it's a conversation with the employee to see where they are, but potentially reducing the workload could be one option so that the person doesn't feel at pressure, as Janet mentioned, an expectation to perform up to a certain par, which can leave the person feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, and pulling from a capacity that's really limited, especially in the acute time around a loss. And then the other thing I think is how other colleagues

might be able to support the load. So thinking about ways to work in tandem with another employee. I know when I went back to work, I of course, hyperproductive, ridiculously, all these, determined all these things. I struggled because I had, I was like chairing all these different things. And I don't know how I would have felt at the time, but looking back, it's like, man, it would have been nice for someone to say, hey, I'll co-chair.

I'm not taking the entire weight of it, but I want to help you do that. I think that's another really powerful tool to communicate, I'm here with you. You don't have to come back and do this all alone.

Yeah, to add to that, the second part of your question about what grief-informed leadership looks like, it starts with educating oneself about grief and loss. It means understanding some basics, some basic grief education concepts, and also putting your assumptions aside and putting those stereotypes that we have about people bouncing back or

the linearity of grief, right? Well, it's like you've done the funeral and you're back and okay, great. So now we're just going to pick up where we left off. Or the other piece is saying nothing at all. No acknowledgement whatsoever, which often is the case because the leader themselves is very uncomfortable in that space and doesn't feel that they can

they're going to make a mistake or they're going to say or do the wrong thing. So I think all of those pieces together, it's really important for the leader to be aware of sort of what their blind spots are in those areas and then to actively work to upskill themselves through training, through group education, through reading. There's a million different ways that you can support yourself as a leader.

What's really interesting, I was talking with a group of folks about a month ago about the word compassion, which I think is a word that scares people, equate that with something therapeutic. And then the reaction in the space is, well, I'm not the person's therapist or that's not my job as the manager, right? But when you really break the word down, like calm and then passion, it's this idea of shining a light on a central theme.

in this case, death, that's the passion. And then coming with, how can I partner with you to address this? Which really changes the focus. It's not about offering you a therapeutic tool so much as it is witnessing, right? This passion before us in a way that feels like we are together along the way versus some other ways that people conceptualize it. And so, yeah, having the conversation with this team, it was really eye-opening for them to think of it that way.

And I think that's an important conversation to have.

I love that point and I love how you break down that word because there is a, I guess, an unspoken sense of you handle your personal things outside of the workplace. Whatever is happening to you personally, you deal with that on your lunch break and after hours, then when you come to work, you show up fully. Which, okay, sure, we're supposed to do our job and also we're human. But we're seeing this weird...

or let's say interesting shift in a world that's embracing AI and there's talk of replacing an entire workforce with a robot because robots don't need bereavement leave. They don't need personal care. How do we reconcile this ever-changing landscape, it feels like, between at the end of the day, we're human and we need care and the conversation of companies wanting to optimize, optimize, optimize.

Yeah, I think in a capitalist system, that really is the goal. Profit and productivity at all costs. And I think where we're seeing those conversations around AI is those higher level functions, those ability to lead with empathy and intellectual curiosity and the creativity. Those are things that are going to be

more more and more. It's not this task oriented stuff that AI can do for most organizations. It's those higher order functions really that make us human that is going to be so important for organizations to invest in and upskill their leadership force because the ones who do are going to go further faster than the ones that don't because people will not want to stay. People will not want to work.

for somebody who treats them like they're a number. So I think it's really important for organizations to understand that yes, well, productivity and profit is sure probably your motive. Your people are going to get you there further and faster with the right supports.

Yeah. I mean, I could certainly make an argument for AI and the efficiency that comes with that. And from a cost perspective, I think the one thing that artificial intelligence can't do is what we're talking about, a foundational gift of grief support. And that is presence. That's witnessing. An artificial intelligence agent can't do that. I think there's some apps for therapy. Like you can type in whatever and the AI is giving you what a therapist might say and so forth.

Again, that may be somewhat helpful, but at the same time, it can never take away the humanity that comes with looking out at something at the same time and saying, I see it too. I see your pain too. Companies really have to determine where they are on a humanity continuum and if they're willing to bypass that altogether for cost sake.

Definitely. And it's a landscape that, like I said, it's ever changing. And these conversations, I feel like, are going to keep arising as we understand better what's evolving in the workplace. But at the end of the day, so long as you're working with humans, we still need these.

core competencies of compassion and empathy, words that are being used as a double-edged sword in today's world, which is very ironic to me. But being a compassionate leader is a true skill. So how do we build compassionate leadership? What kind of training do they need? What does this look like? If somebody wanted to bring that to their workplace, how would they do that?

As a psychologist, I think that we've always got to start with holding up a mirror to ourselves. Like one of the elements in Bloomwell's training curriculum is focused on the impact of loss in your own experience, which we can learn all about grief and we can sort of get the nuts and bolts and the literacy around grief. However, if you are sitting with someone who is grieving and

you really have not connected to the depth of grief within you, that's going to create a wall, sometimes more visible than others, to true compassionate, again, that come passion. And so really looking at the individual, him or herself, and saying, this is my loss. And even if the leader or manager hasn't experienced a death, we've all experienced other types of deaths, right? Whether it be the death of identity and ideals or dreams or expectations.

So there's a universality in grief that we can all relate to. And Jana and I do our best to help people shine a light within so that they can then produce that outside of themselves.

And I think one of the things that we really bring to organizations is an interactive and engaging conversation. We create the space for people to not only learn from us, but to learn from each other as well. There's great expertise in organizations and I'm a big, big believer in peer learning. But those conversations, they need to be structured in a way that is supported that

they can be successful. So we create the frame for people to have these conversations that can be really tough. Through those, people are learning not only about themselves, but about their colleagues as well. And that's so profound. And that really is how we create better culture in organizations. It's not just about, okay, we'll learn the nuts and bolts of grief, and then I'll go away and I'll do my checklists. And you know, I'm all ready. Really, it's about developing that

where we're humanizing the workplace is that we understand we have our struggles, we're not leaving them at the door and it makes us stronger when we come together and we can talk about that in an honest and supportive way and I think that that's really the profound value of having training.

Well, and I think when there are these opportunities to have these peer facilitated conversations, what happens is that people begin to realize the language that they use to sort of understand the grief landscape, which is really eye opening. Sometimes we don't realize that we may be bypassing, we may be minimizing, we may be avoiding. so shining a light on the language that folks use and sort of saying, OK, let's pause, let's reset, let's reflect.

how does that land and how might that land in an interaction with an employee is super important. So again, as part of our curriculum, we really focus on language. Like language really does matter. It's not about semantics. It's not about feel good things, but it is about being self-aware of what's coming out. And before we say anything, what's even undergirding that is your presence, posture. Like all of what you embody is a communication to that grieving employee.

to let them know, is this a safe place or is it not?

Yeah, so important as well on top of the language is the practical tools. We actually provide strategies and tools for managers who are stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, don't even have time to read their emails sometimes with practical strategies for just that. If you're talking to somebody who's going through a hard time, maybe put down your phone, right? We're gonna put down our phone, we're gonna focus, we're gonna make eye contact, we're not gonna be doing a million things at once.

because that presence communicates to that employee, care about you and I'm listening. Even if I don't have all the answers or I don't necessarily know what to say, I'm still here for you. So it's a combination of theory and practice as well as language pieces that are so important for people to feel. I'm gaining skill and anybody can learn these skills. These are accessible skills to anyone.

And I love the awareness piece because grief is not just death related. It's also related to all types of losses within our lives. For whatever reason, the LA fires came to mind when people lost their homes in the LA fires. Imagine having to go to work or check in with your work after something like that. And when we put things in that perspective, how could you not bring that over to work? We wish we could come part to mentalize, but grief spills onto everything else. It's very generous with itself.

is.

overflows into every aspect of our lives. So how can grieving employees collaborate with managers to have better outcomes? I've heard success stories like companies creating organizations or support groups for special bereaved groups, for example. What are some of these real life, real world scenarios that can be implemented in the workplace?

Yeah, I think ultimately is sort of helping understand that grief is not the person who came back to work. It's not the individual, right? That individual exists within the family context and the work context, which is in part of larger society. And so the more that leaders and managers can understand the ripple effect, right, that that affords them space to say, how might we create ambassadors like who are who are beyond the leader?

position is not this is one person sort of providing these sprinkly dust brief supports to the organization and its employees, but who else in the organization can we lean on, whether that's, you know, a small group of people that meets or even as an organization, we just have a moment throughout the week or perhaps throughout the month where we create space to say, hey, we know this is real. Here's an opportunity for us to converge and sort of listen to one another.

sit in silence with one another, be in the space with one another to acknowledge it. So Janet and I would be training the trainer. We come in and then that leader is empowered to go out and say, okay, how can I enlist other folks in the organization who are going to serve as these grief ambassadors so that not only in the short term are we providing support, but in the long run, years later, these practices are still in place for the employee who we know is still going to be grieving years down the line.

As you mentioned, Nina, there are definitely organizations, think Delta Airlines is a great example of an organization that was a grassroots movement from bereaved parents who were Delta employees who wanted to come together and sought the support of their VP of HR who

rightfully and with good foresight said, yes, this is something that we want to support. Any kind of peer support is a great opportunity to do that. One of the things that I would caution organizations against is pointing at EAP or pointing at a particular software to think that that is going to be the solution or the panacea that is going to solve all of these problems. These are tools that employees can use.

but they're going to need people in their ecosystem, right? In their orbit, their colleagues, their immediate supervisor. We know from research that the immediate supervisor can have more impact on a person's mental health than potentially anybody else in their life, including a spouse. That is a huge responsibility for somebody. And when they're going through something so difficult,

It's so, important for managers to have those skills so that they can not only point people in the right direction to the tools that the organization has, but also be a safe person for them to come to as well.

And establishing that sense of safety is so, key because what one person considers safe may not necessarily be perceived as safe by somebody else. So how do you think consensus, how do you establish a sense of safety that your employee feels comfortable coming to you and that open door type of policy? remember in my own experience, the managing director came to my brother's wake, you know, she showed up.

And I barely remember talking to her, but I remember seeing her there. And that alone was priceless to me. To this day, that meant the world to me. I'm not saying that every manager needs to attend a funeral, but however you can show up stays with you. And I don't know anything that builds more loyalty and better dynamics at work than feeling supported and seen in the most painful time, one of the most painful times of life.

So just showing up, also love that you brought up the concept of the ambassadors. And if we could expand on that a little bit, because what is the importance of having long-term grief care? Why would that be a thing?

Well, think when, of course, depending on the employee, when somebody comes back to work, they are, I would argue, more likely than not heavily invested in proving, showing, and getting back into the productivity that's part of the organization. So the grief ambassador is a way to anchor the reality of grief, to honor the fact that grief is not something that we're just going to have a two-time conversation about or two-hour experience over the next couple of months.

and then it's going to be over. So embedding people in the organization who can keep that conversation alive is such a beautiful way to help that employee feel safe and seen and known that their grief is not weird, that they don't need to be stigmatized, that this is just something that we know is going to be difficult forever. And we're here in the long run so that you don't get back to this idea that, OK, we've had six weeks.

and now we want you to come back to who you were. It's literally just providing a physical touch point in the organization to release expectations around going back to who you were. We talk a lot about resilience, and I always give a little bit of pushback on that word, which literally means bounce back. And I think we've got to be careful when we're saying, okay, we're here promoting a resilient organization. The truth is we're here.

to support employees evolve over time. We're here for the evolution of our employees. That's really what we want to do, grief or not. And so those ambassadors can help communicate that message much more effectively and in the long run.

And further to that, mean, organizations are dynamic. You've got people coming and going all of the time. You're typically not going to have the same population of employees for a long time. So when you've got people coming, new people coming into an organization, it's really important to have the infrastructure in place that can support them. Secondly, people typically don't just experience one loss within their working life.

we're experiencing multiple losses throughout the period of our productive years. So it's really important to have people who can support through all of those difficult times and also who have maybe some perspective and experience with the organization as well to be able to help navigate through that. think that's really important too.

It reminds me, I don't know what year this was, but I remember there was a huge push in organizations at one point to have respite rooms. Like where you could go during the middle of the day. Again, this is not to say we should usher all the grieving folks into the dungeon so that they can collaborate together, but it's that spirit of saying, look, this is an available resource to you at all times. And if we see you accessing it or talking about it or bringing the information alike, there's nothing wrong with that.

because we know this is not a short-term experience in your life.

That's beautifully stated. just even imagine as you're listening or watching that you walk into your workspace and there's a respite room or there's a space where you summon a peer or somebody that you trust to have conversations and the workplace already understands what is happening. Having these dedicated spaces in place can make a world of difference. At the end of the day, it's not necessarily about time off because depending on the severity of your loss, it could be a lifelong thing.

It's about expanding our capacity. agree with the word resilience that it's not a bounce back. I've personally redefined resilience as an ability to expand our capacity to hold the magnitude of life's experiences. And this includes in the personal and the professional. So I love that you are doing just that for companies through Bloomwell Partners, that you're helping them expand their capacity to, to

incorporate the vastness of the human experience in a way that's harmonious with the work environment, that's extremely powerful.

Well, and I think that if we engage these ideas of respite rooms and ambassadors, what that does for the leader is take the load off. Because I think there's so much fears the leader, just the title, this expectation like I've got to fix and oversee everything. But it's like, no, we're all here on the playing field. And each one on this field is going to be playing a different role. Yes, the leader will have some elements that are different than the colleagues, perhaps.

We all have a role to play, which is very, it's such a gorgeous picture of what humanity should be, because we all do have a role to play in supporting the greater humanity for everyone.

Let's use the analogy of, and this is so cliche in a way, but like you've broken your leg and you need to come back to work. The leader's job is to have a conversation with the person to say, okay, tell me about your functional ability. Tell me about your barriers. Tell me about whatever obstacles you have. Same with grief. This is the leader's job is really to facilitate, right?

the removal of barriers and obstacles within an operating context. And so if that is through connecting with peer support, if it's with workload, if it's with flexible hours, whatever that person can do within their control, that's what they can work with the employee to help navigate and, as you say, make that more of a gentle transition and smooth down those barriers. And I think that that really is it's not to have

all of the answers yourself, it's to have the awareness of with whom can I connect and how do I create the space for you to come back in as barrier free a way as possible.

This almost takes me back to your original question, Nina, about how to employees engage agency. I'm imagining a world where we have normalized grief in the workplace, that employee comes back, there's no longer an expectation that one person, aka the manager or supervisor, is the only person here to support, but we're able to expand our awareness of who else is here. Who else is here? And yes, the manager.

may not be the primary, it may be a colleague, it may be someone else. It's important to also, as much as the grieving person can, be aware who else is available. In my case, that was not my supervisor who knocked on the glass door and said I wanted to come in. That was a colleague who did that and it was a beautiful moment, but it helped me widen my lens enough to realize that I didn't want to quit the job, I just needed someone to witness what was going on.

Beautifully said. And let's say somebody is an employer, an organization, and they're like, okay, cool, but what is in it for me? Like, what's in it for our bottom line? How would you address that concern?

Well, we know that unsupported grief in the workplace has significant consequences, both for individual employees, but also for organizations. So you're looking at higher turnover, loss of key employees and positions that probably have excellent relationships with customers, clients, corporate memory that could be lost. It's also very expensive to replace somebody. It can cost up to 50 % of that person's annual salary to replace them.

So what's in it for organizations is not only their retention of key talent, but it's also fostering a culture where other employees, when they're talking about that organization, there's a reputational piece there as well to say like, man, when I came back from, you know, whatever devastation I went through, this is how my employer supported me. This is how I responded. And I'm loyal to that employer because of it.

And I want to attract other talented people to this organization because we have a supportive work culture. So I think that there are many different aspects for organizations, not only from a retention perspective and a turnover perspective, but also reputational.

And I think on the back end, the leader is going to feel less stress, right? There will be that acute stress of like, the person's back at work. my gosh, how do I handle that? But in the end, if we have these things in place, in the long run, it actually benefits the leader because now you're not having to deal with that combustion of, gosh, I'm the only person who has to of deal with this, if you will. We have these things in place to help this employee.

And as Janet mentioned, when an employee feels appreciated and seen, they're more likely to stay, which is going to help increase connection and longevity in the organization as a whole.

Not to mention the fact that every HR trend study from Deloitte to PWC to, mean, every consulting firm out there is going to tell you that emotional intelligence is the thing that leaders must have to be good at their jobs. We're not making widgets. Like this isn't what we do most of the time. You have to have a higher level of emotional awareness, self-awareness and communication skills.

frankly, in this post-industrial world that we live in, particularly as you mentioned AI, this is what separates us from machines. it's really, really, these are skills that are not nice to have. They are must haves now for any.

Absolutely. And I've talked to, have had countless conversations about the marked moment when somebody felt either supported or not supported in the workplace. And 100 % of the people that I have spoken with left that place of employment because of how they were treated or not treated during their.

I was right there. I was right there. And then that person came down the class. Yeah, it definitely matters. I will say on the back end of that interaction, that person became the ambassador. And there was such a sense of safety that it kept me there for three more years. And it turned into a beautiful friendship. leading up to that, not to say that we weren't friends, but just the depth of

connection, I was so deeply rooted that, yeah, it was really beautiful to be seen in that moment and beyond.

we're having this split in the type of work environments that we're seeing now where a lot of people are returning to the physical workspace and a lot of teams are going remote. So there's this location. let's touch on the remote teams, for example, somebody's bereaved. How do you address grief in a remote work environment?

It's such a great question because again, in this hybrid world that we live in work wise, it can be, it can feel really challenging, but I would say do the same thing that you were going to do if you were going to see that person in the office. Is it going to feel as organic? Maybe not. You're not walking by their desk, but you can still send them a Slack message. You can still send them a Teams message and say, Hey, I'm thinking about you. I'm here. You could call me anytime. Can we, can we set up a virtual coffee?

date.

whatever time, right? It may be a different medium, a different forum, but the outreach can still be the same. And similarly with managers, again, you have to think about how do you design that interaction, maybe a little bit differently if you're virtual, but the intent can still be the same. I want to connect. I want to make sure that you have what you need, the support around you, and check in with that person, even if you're doing it virtually.

It may require a little bit more of a higher degree of intentionality in a virtual space. But to Janet's point, it can sort of be like an out of sight, out of mind. That's the beauty of seeing people. However, I think on the leader's part, even documenting those key dates. So when the person comes back to work, you've already identified like this is when they experienced this loss. Documenting that.

I cannot tell you how incredible, I'm 12 and a half years past my mom's loss, my mom's death, and there's someone in my world who remembers that she died on December the 9th. And 12 and a half years later, it's inevitable. Sometimes it's a couple days off, but who cares? There's a remembering of that day, and it's just been really profound. That's something that a manager can do, right? Or say, hey, Mother's Day is coming up, Father's Day is coming up.

let me document that and maybe virtually send them a message or Slack, whatever, and in person, same thing. So I agree with Janet. I think we've got to be more intentional and strategic, but we can still show our presence in a virtual space.

Having that check-in culture can make a world of difference in person and remotely. we cannot underestimate the power of just acknowledging that something is difficult, that one particular day could be so difficult for somebody and reaching out on that date. As simple as that may sound, it's very powerful. I want to be mindful of your time and leave some room for maybe something I haven't touched on that you want to include in this conversation.

whatever feels right for you.

I'll just say just a simple reminder, and this is for all of us in and out of the workplace, at our core, we are all connected. And if we can remember that, whether it's our colleague going through something or a friend, their pain is our pain, and their joys are our joys, their sorrows are our sorrows, and so forth. And so just remembering that it truly is people to people. We're connected.

Yeah, just to that point, I would say, you know, we spend so much of our time and energy and our professional endeavors, and it can make such a huge difference in someone's life when they have supportive colleagues and a supportive manager around them. It can be life changing. So I would encourage everyone to think about how they can cultivate that kind of workplace for themselves.

You don't need to be in a leadership role to do that. Anyone can do that. And it really is a great investment, not only in your wellbeing, but in the wellbeing of the people that you work with.

That's good.

And how can people find information about Blue Mold Partners and how to work with you?

Yeah, they can head over to our website, which is growwithbloomwell.com. We're super excited. We're upgrading our website. It's going to be gorgeous. But yes, you can contact us there. You can also reach out directly to us through Instagram. We are at Bloomwell Partners through direct message or email us at bloomwellpartners.gmail.com. We'd love to connect with you and learn how we can best support your organization.

Wonderful. And I will also link our other conversations to the show notes so you can get to know more about each of their personal stories of loss because you're not just working in this space as professionals, you're also people who have experienced profound loss on a first basis level. So you understand it more fully. And what is one actionable takeaway that you can tell somebody who is facing grief in the workplace, whether that be an individual and or

an employer.

Mm-hmm.

I would say give yourself grace. We judge ourselves far more harshly than other people judge us. So if you're struggling, don't heap judgment on, just give yourself some grace to say, you know what, I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances. And that's what I can do right now. That's what I would offer.

Yeah.

I would say that grief can be a wonderful silencer of a lot of parts of who we are. So just to remember that your grief and your voice matters.

Absolutely. And if any of this conversation resonated, I highly encourage you to reach out to Janet and Dr. Mikkel through Bloomwell Partners. Everything will be in the show notes. And just understand that your experience is so very valid. And if you are a leader, a team leader, you're part of an organization, a company, and you're looking to incorporate more of this humanity, this connection, this ability to build a healthy culture in the workspace.

then by all means reach out. And I want to thank you both for your generosity of time. You have been wonderful. It's always a pleasure to see you and some of my favorite people. thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for being you.

No, thanks.

Nah, we're grateful.

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight, or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.

And I'm imagining a world where we have normalized grief in the workplace, that employee comes back, there's no longer an expectation that one person, aka the manager or supervisor, is the only person here to support, but we're able to expand our awareness of who else is here. Who else is here? And yes, the manager may not be the primary, it may be a colleague, it may be someone else. It's important to also, as much as the grieving person can, be aware.

who else is available.

just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief-colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast. My name is Nina Rodriguez and I am your host. And today I'm joined by two returning guests, Dr. Mikkel Harris and Janet Guilham Wright.

You may remember their personal stories of loss from earlier episodes, but today we're focusing on the powerful work that they do together as co-founders of Bloomwell Partners, a firm dedicated to making workplaces more grief-informed and compassionate. This conversation is all about what it means to advocate for yourself while grieving at work and how personal agency, clear communication, and compassionate leadership

can help shape more human workplaces. Let's get into it. With that, I'd like to give both of you a warm welcome back to the Grief in Light podcast.

Thank you so much, Nina. feels like, like I said before, like I'm just sitting on your couch, which I love. So appreciative of the invitation back.

Absolutely couldn't be more thrilled to be here to see you and to have this conversation with the three of us. I'm excited

Yes, this is super exciting. Both of your stories have reached so many people on a personal level. So I love that we get to bring this new perspective and talk about grief in the workplace, which is such a huge topic for people. And this arc of personal agency to compassionate leadership, how do we bridge that gap? So I'm excited to get into it. And you know, you both have personal experiences that shaped your losses. So could you share a moment that stands out from your own grief?

as you perhaps return to work or the experience that you've had with people returning to work. And you could start wherever you'd like.

Yeah, I'll share. So I was working academia. This was in December 2012 when my mom passed away of stage four pancreatic cancer. And my office just happened to be positioned in a corner pocket. And one of the walls of the office was glass. And so you could literally see into my office. And I felt like I was in a little bit of a fishbowl. Of course, what I was hoping for was that people would be able to see.

into that fishbowl and sort of cross over the threshold and offer support. And that didn't happen right away. It took about almost seven to eight months for one of my colleagues to gently knock on the glass and say, can I just come in? And I remember her coming into the office and she said, I have no idea what to say, but can I just sit with you? And that was the first time without her knowing that I had already been thinking about leaving.

my job because I hadn't really received that support that I needed. That was such a pivotal moment and it kept me there for another three years just feeling like there was concern in that space. So yeah, that support really makes a difference to people coming back to the workplace.

Yeah. And for me, I was so young when my mom died that I had a summer job that I started two weeks after she passed away. And I remember feeling so, I was still in shock when I went to work and I was very, I felt very robotic, but also performative. Like I needed to be there and I needed to show up and I needed to be okay for the kids that I was, you know, a summer counselor for. And I remember one day just sitting down.

at the end of a really long, tiring, hot summer day. And I just started to cry. And I had a counselor come over to me and she said, my gosh, I just heard about your mom and I'm so sorry. I can't believe you're here. And I said, I didn't feel like I had a choice. I had to do this. I needed the money. I was preparing to go to school. And she said, if you need anything, just let me know.

And that was the only person who really reached out to me that summer. Everybody else just sort of pretended like it didn't exist. And frankly, I pretended like I tried to pretend like it didn't exist too. I was so, I would say, disassociated from my grief and from what I was actually feeling that I felt like I couldn't tell anybody and I didn't want to be a burden. And so I didn't share it. But as I became a leader many years later,

I remember that person and I remember how I felt and I never want anyone to come into the workplace feeling like that.

Thank you both for sharing and that's so real. I heard the word robotic and feeling like we didn't have a choice. So that is such a confronting feeling for many grievers in the workplace. So I hear you from a personal level and also I'm sorry you experienced that. And thank you for the work that you're doing to change that because ultimately that's what it's about. And what are some challenges in your experience that some people face after they return to work and what would agency look like at the workplace in your opinion?

think one of the major challenges that employees face when they go back to work is just the sheer small amount of time they have to sort of move past the logistical things that come along with death, right? So my last job before I started working for myself, we had a 48-hour bereavement leave. And so my dad passed away. This was in 2020. He died on a Monday. Wednesday, my phone rang.

And they, my supervisor, the acting supervisor at the time said, hey, just wanted to check in and see when you might be coming back to work. And obviously 48 hours, one week, two months, years is not enough time to wrap your mind around these harsh realities. But so I think one of the things that grievers face is just how do I manage all the logistics, funeral planning, contacting family, traveling to the memorial or funeral site, letting people know.

Just wrapping my mind around the reality. It's so difficult to do that. And what the research shows is that a lot of people do come physically back to work, but mentally they're not there because they may have to be on the phone handling a lot of these practical realities that come along with the death.

The other thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that the impact of grief is not just emotional, it's also physical, it's mental, it's cognitive. So all of these things that we think of for ourselves going into a work environment, being productive, performing, communication skills, conflict resolution skills, just those basic interpersonal skills, all of that can be impacted.

by someone's grieving experience. And so it's a really tough transition for a lot of people to go back into that environment and they just don't feel like themselves at all. And what other people are seeing is, wow, like Janet's here, but she doesn't really seem like herself. Well, it's because I'm not. And I think that that's part of a lot of the misunderstanding or

sort of misinterpretation I think that people feel when they come back into the workplace they feel misunderstood if they don't have the support that they need to make that transition back in a healthy way.

Yeah, it's for the

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Now was going to say to the second part of your question, know, how can people engage in their personal agency? I think part of that is realizing that you're not going to be returning to work the same, right? I think societally there's an expectation that you're going to sort of bounce back or kind of come back to what you how and what you were. But I think it's it's wise to realize I've changed. This death has fundamentally shifted who I am at this time and the ways that I'm going to be showing up in the world.

And so given yourself permission to say, it's okay that I'm coming back into this place that's familiar with a new identity of sorts and really embracing the reality of that.

So true, because the feeling of feeling like we're too much, like our grief is too much, like we're overwhelming the workplace on top of everything that we're experiencing. Like you said, we are not the same. Is it reality that people face when reentering the workplace? So what would you say to somebody who perhaps feels like too much, where can they begin to start softening that reentry back into the workplace?

I love that question. To soften the re-entry. That's a beautiful way to put it because I think it does feel hard, feels jagged. It's certainly how I felt and probably you as well, Mikael, like a bifurcated sort of experience. It's discombobulating to feel like I'm grieving so much outside and then the minute I get to the work environment, well, I have to be like a completely different person. That's just not how human beings work.

One of the ways is to really recognize for yourself that this is going to be impactful. It has deep consequences. And to listen to your body, I think really to just tune into what you're feeling and what you need and to try and verbalize that in whatever way you can to your colleagues, to your supervisor.

Yeah.

It's really important to be able to express to them where you're currently at and what you think you may need to soften that transition. And we can get into specifics, but I think it really is important to not try to put the grief aside. Not to say, that's something I'm going to deal with outside of the nine to five or whatever your shift work is, because it doesn't work that way. It's going to come with you into the workplace, and that's okay.

that's normal and natural. So that's one of the things that I would say, but I Michele has lots of other ideas too.

As you were talking, Janet, I flashed back in my mind to this interaction I had with a therapist after my mom died. And this is around the 2014 mark. I remember her introducing me to this Latin phrase, and I'm probably going to butcher the pronunciation of it, but it was, I believe, Contrere a Jéré. And what she said was, as you are reintegrating back into life, social relationships, just the rhythms that you had before your mom died,

think of contraire agerre, which means do the opposite. Like for me, and this was powerful for me because I was that hyperproductive employee who went right back in, didn't really want to face the loss. And so I did everything to look normal and even excessively so. And so her sharing that with me was sort of a recognition like it's okay to do the opposite, right? As a matter of fact, doing the opposite. Like if your mind is telling you,

I need to work an extra hour so that my employees or my coworkers think that I'm really on the ball. Maybe the opposite is I need to leave at seven hours and 30 minutes, right? Don't even take the lunch break or whatever that looks like. And so I think it's important in the terms of agency to realize you're different and it's okay to do different things as you come back to the workplace.

Beautiful. And yes, there's such a gap between a few things like what we think we need, what we should or shouldn't do and how to advocate for ourselves at work, being able to verbalize, hey, this is what I need. So first it's like knowing what you need, honoring that and then verbalizing it. So what's a practical way for somebody to advocate for themselves in the workplace, knowing that

We live in the context of this grief-averse, grief-illiterate society, and that's prevalent in our workspaces, which is why these conversations are important. So what would you say to this, let's say, a new griever who needs to advocate for themselves?

Yeah, this is tough because I'm feeling conflicted even thinking this. think it's so difficult for someone grieving to have the energy to tell people what they need. And societally, I think there's an expectation that the griever tell everyone else how to be supported, which is exhausting. At the same time, I do think that there needs to be some sort of exercising.

of agency, even if it is today's my first day, week back at work, I probably need to meet with my acting supervisor, a leader, HR, if only to understand the policies and procedures of my job, which a lot of people don't know, right? Why would you ask about bereavement at an interview? I would now, Janet would now.

Grievers would, but I think the average person's not thinking that. So if only scheduling an appointment to sort of get the facts and understand what your rights are within that organization is a great place to start.

Yeah, and I think too, this is really where we like to talk about grief-informed leadership, compassionate leadership, developing an empathetic approach to management. This is where leaders need to step into this space. Because when you have somebody who has experienced a significant loss, regardless of the type of loss, it's really important to educate yourself on what your organization's policies and procedures are.

because leaders may not know that either. So if you don't know, you may not be able to provide that information to your employee. So really important to educate yourself there, but also to remember that you're in partnership with your employee. This is a relationship that you hopefully have developed a good rapport that's based on trust and to have that conversation and to put that forward to say, I don't want to presume to know what you need.

let's talk about in the context of the work that you do, some of the flexibilities that we might be able to offer you and have that conversation and really allow that person if they can to step into that conversation to say, you know, these are some of the things that I might need or these are some of the things that might work for me. So you're not making assumptions, but you're opening the door to a conversation about flexibility, adaptability, and also communicating, I care about you.

I care about your well-being. I want you to do well coming back. I know you're having a difficult time. So these are all really important messages that can help the griever's nervous system just hopefully calm down a bit because it's stressful. Grieving is stressful as we know and coming back into a work environment where we're not sure if we're going to be able to meet some expectation is also really stressful as well.

Yeah.

love that you mentioned keeping the door open. It's a conversation. It's a two-way street, which sometimes we lose sight of because our world has been turned upside down and we don't know exactly where to start. So it's a good reminder that we start with checking in and also checking with our team, looking at our employer as part of our team in that sense and seeing what are our options, what is available. And a lot of people default to the thinking that

bereavement leave or grief support at work is a few days off. Like, instead of three, we'll give you a week off and you're welcome. besides time off or in addition to time off, what does grief support in the workplace look like and what does compassionate leadership look like in practice?

Yeah, I think one of the ways that this can look is talking about the workload. So again, returning, I'm not the same. There may be that employee who's grieving, who's like, yes, I can handle the load. But of course, there's going to be ongoing conversations about my capacity to do so. And it may be, again, this is not the leader saying, hey, we don't think you can handle it. We're going to reduce your workload. Everything is collaborative.

So it's a conversation with the employee to see where they are, but potentially reducing the workload could be one option so that the person doesn't feel at pressure, as Janet mentioned, an expectation to perform up to a certain par, which can leave the person feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, and pulling from a capacity that's really limited, especially in the acute time around a loss. And then the other thing I think is how other colleagues

might be able to support the load. So thinking about ways to work in tandem with another employee. I know when I went back to work, I of course, hyperproductive, ridiculously, all these, determined all these things. I struggled because I had, I was like chairing all these different things. And I don't know how I would have felt at the time, but looking back, it's like, man, it would have been nice for someone to say, hey, I'll co-chair.

I'm not taking the entire weight of it, but I want to help you do that. I think that's another really powerful tool to communicate, I'm here with you. You don't have to come back and do this all alone.

Yeah, to add to that, the second part of your question about what grief-informed leadership looks like, it starts with educating oneself about grief and loss. It means understanding some basics, some basic grief education concepts, and also putting your assumptions aside and putting those stereotypes that we have about people bouncing back or

the linearity of grief, right? Well, it's like you've done the funeral and you're back and okay, great. So now we're just going to pick up where we left off. Or the other piece is saying nothing at all. No acknowledgement whatsoever, which often is the case because the leader themselves is very uncomfortable in that space and doesn't feel that they can

they're going to make a mistake or they're going to say or do the wrong thing. So I think all of those pieces together, it's really important for the leader to be aware of sort of what their blind spots are in those areas and then to actively work to upskill themselves through training, through group education, through reading. There's a million different ways that you can support yourself as a leader.

What's really interesting, I was talking with a group of folks about a month ago about the word compassion, which I think is a word that scares people, equate that with something therapeutic. And then the reaction in the space is, well, I'm not the person's therapist or that's not my job as the manager, right? But when you really break the word down, like calm and then passion, it's this idea of shining a light on a central theme.

in this case, death, that's the passion. And then coming with, how can I partner with you to address this? Which really changes the focus. It's not about offering you a therapeutic tool so much as it is witnessing, right? This passion before us in a way that feels like we are together along the way versus some other ways that people conceptualize it. And so, yeah, having the conversation with this team, it was really eye-opening for them to think of it that way.

And I think that's an important conversation to have.

I love that point and I love how you break down that word because there is a, I guess, an unspoken sense of you handle your personal things outside of the workplace. Whatever is happening to you personally, you deal with that on your lunch break and after hours, then when you come to work, you show up fully. Which, okay, sure, we're supposed to do our job and also we're human. But we're seeing this weird...

or let's say interesting shift in a world that's embracing AI and there's talk of replacing an entire workforce with a robot because robots don't need bereavement leave. They don't need personal care. How do we reconcile this ever-changing landscape, it feels like, between at the end of the day, we're human and we need care and the conversation of companies wanting to optimize, optimize, optimize.

Yeah, I think in a capitalist system, that really is the goal. Profit and productivity at all costs. And I think where we're seeing those conversations around AI is those higher level functions, those ability to lead with empathy and intellectual curiosity and the creativity. Those are things that are going to be

more more and more. It's not this task oriented stuff that AI can do for most organizations. It's those higher order functions really that make us human that is going to be so important for organizations to invest in and upskill their leadership force because the ones who do are going to go further faster than the ones that don't because people will not want to stay. People will not want to work.

for somebody who treats them like they're a number. So I think it's really important for organizations to understand that yes, well, productivity and profit is sure probably your motive. Your people are going to get you there further and faster with the right supports.

Yeah. I mean, I could certainly make an argument for AI and the efficiency that comes with that. And from a cost perspective, I think the one thing that artificial intelligence can't do is what we're talking about, a foundational gift of grief support. And that is presence. That's witnessing. An artificial intelligence agent can't do that. I think there's some apps for therapy. Like you can type in whatever and the AI is giving you what a therapist might say and so forth.

Again, that may be somewhat helpful, but at the same time, it can never take away the humanity that comes with looking out at something at the same time and saying, I see it too. I see your pain too. Companies really have to determine where they are on a humanity continuum and if they're willing to bypass that altogether for cost sake.

Definitely. And it's a landscape that, like I said, it's ever changing. And these conversations, I feel like, are going to keep arising as we understand better what's evolving in the workplace. But at the end of the day, so long as you're working with humans, we still need these.

core competencies of compassion and empathy, words that are being used as a double-edged sword in today's world, which is very ironic to me. But being a compassionate leader is a true skill. So how do we build compassionate leadership? What kind of training do they need? What does this look like? If somebody wanted to bring that to their workplace, how would they do that?

As a psychologist, I think that we've always got to start with holding up a mirror to ourselves. Like one of the elements in Bloomwell's training curriculum is focused on the impact of loss in your own experience, which we can learn all about grief and we can sort of get the nuts and bolts and the literacy around grief. However, if you are sitting with someone who is grieving and

you really have not connected to the depth of grief within you, that's going to create a wall, sometimes more visible than others, to true compassionate, again, that come passion. And so really looking at the individual, him or herself, and saying, this is my loss. And even if the leader or manager hasn't experienced a death, we've all experienced other types of deaths, right? Whether it be the death of identity and ideals or dreams or expectations.

So there's a universality in grief that we can all relate to. And Jana and I do our best to help people shine a light within so that they can then produce that outside of themselves.

And I think one of the things that we really bring to organizations is an interactive and engaging conversation. We create the space for people to not only learn from us, but to learn from each other as well. There's great expertise in organizations and I'm a big, big believer in peer learning. But those conversations, they need to be structured in a way that is supported that

they can be successful. So we create the frame for people to have these conversations that can be really tough. Through those, people are learning not only about themselves, but about their colleagues as well. And that's so profound. And that really is how we create better culture in organizations. It's not just about, okay, we'll learn the nuts and bolts of grief, and then I'll go away and I'll do my checklists. And you know, I'm all ready. Really, it's about developing that

where we're humanizing the workplace is that we understand we have our struggles, we're not leaving them at the door and it makes us stronger when we come together and we can talk about that in an honest and supportive way and I think that that's really the profound value of having training.

Well, and I think when there are these opportunities to have these peer facilitated conversations, what happens is that people begin to realize the language that they use to sort of understand the grief landscape, which is really eye opening. Sometimes we don't realize that we may be bypassing, we may be minimizing, we may be avoiding. so shining a light on the language that folks use and sort of saying, OK, let's pause, let's reset, let's reflect.

how does that land and how might that land in an interaction with an employee is super important. So again, as part of our curriculum, we really focus on language. Like language really does matter. It's not about semantics. It's not about feel good things, but it is about being self-aware of what's coming out. And before we say anything, what's even undergirding that is your presence, posture. Like all of what you embody is a communication to that grieving employee.

to let them know, is this a safe place or is it not?

Yeah, so important as well on top of the language is the practical tools. We actually provide strategies and tools for managers who are stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, don't even have time to read their emails sometimes with practical strategies for just that. If you're talking to somebody who's going through a hard time, maybe put down your phone, right? We're gonna put down our phone, we're gonna focus, we're gonna make eye contact, we're not gonna be doing a million things at once.

because that presence communicates to that employee, care about you and I'm listening. Even if I don't have all the answers or I don't necessarily know what to say, I'm still here for you. So it's a combination of theory and practice as well as language pieces that are so important for people to feel. I'm gaining skill and anybody can learn these skills. These are accessible skills to anyone.

And I love the awareness piece because grief is not just death related. It's also related to all types of losses within our lives. For whatever reason, the LA fires came to mind when people lost their homes in the LA fires. Imagine having to go to work or check in with your work after something like that. And when we put things in that perspective, how could you not bring that over to work? We wish we could come part to mentalize, but grief spills onto everything else. It's very generous with itself.

is.

overflows into every aspect of our lives. So how can grieving employees collaborate with managers to have better outcomes? I've heard success stories like companies creating organizations or support groups for special bereaved groups, for example. What are some of these real life, real world scenarios that can be implemented in the workplace?

Yeah, I think ultimately is sort of helping understand that grief is not the person who came back to work. It's not the individual, right? That individual exists within the family context and the work context, which is in part of larger society. And so the more that leaders and managers can understand the ripple effect, right, that that affords them space to say, how might we create ambassadors like who are who are beyond the leader?

position is not this is one person sort of providing these sprinkly dust brief supports to the organization and its employees, but who else in the organization can we lean on, whether that's, you know, a small group of people that meets or even as an organization, we just have a moment throughout the week or perhaps throughout the month where we create space to say, hey, we know this is real. Here's an opportunity for us to converge and sort of listen to one another.

sit in silence with one another, be in the space with one another to acknowledge it. So Janet and I would be training the trainer. We come in and then that leader is empowered to go out and say, okay, how can I enlist other folks in the organization who are going to serve as these grief ambassadors so that not only in the short term are we providing support, but in the long run, years later, these practices are still in place for the employee who we know is still going to be grieving years down the line.

As you mentioned, Nina, there are definitely organizations, think Delta Airlines is a great example of an organization that was a grassroots movement from bereaved parents who were Delta employees who wanted to come together and sought the support of their VP of HR who

rightfully and with good foresight said, yes, this is something that we want to support. Any kind of peer support is a great opportunity to do that. One of the things that I would caution organizations against is pointing at EAP or pointing at a particular software to think that that is going to be the solution or the panacea that is going to solve all of these problems. These are tools that employees can use.

but they're going to need people in their ecosystem, right? In their orbit, their colleagues, their immediate supervisor. We know from research that the immediate supervisor can have more impact on a person's mental health than potentially anybody else in their life, including a spouse. That is a huge responsibility for somebody. And when they're going through something so difficult,

It's so, important for managers to have those skills so that they can not only point people in the right direction to the tools that the organization has, but also be a safe person for them to come to as well.

And establishing that sense of safety is so, key because what one person considers safe may not necessarily be perceived as safe by somebody else. So how do you think consensus, how do you establish a sense of safety that your employee feels comfortable coming to you and that open door type of policy? remember in my own experience, the managing director came to my brother's wake, you know, she showed up.

And I barely remember talking to her, but I remember seeing her there. And that alone was priceless to me. To this day, that meant the world to me. I'm not saying that every manager needs to attend a funeral, but however you can show up stays with you. And I don't know anything that builds more loyalty and better dynamics at work than feeling supported and seen in the most painful time, one of the most painful times of life.

So just showing up, also love that you brought up the concept of the ambassadors. And if we could expand on that a little bit, because what is the importance of having long-term grief care? Why would that be a thing?

Well, think when, of course, depending on the employee, when somebody comes back to work, they are, I would argue, more likely than not heavily invested in proving, showing, and getting back into the productivity that's part of the organization. So the grief ambassador is a way to anchor the reality of grief, to honor the fact that grief is not something that we're just going to have a two-time conversation about or two-hour experience over the next couple of months.

and then it's going to be over. So embedding people in the organization who can keep that conversation alive is such a beautiful way to help that employee feel safe and seen and known that their grief is not weird, that they don't need to be stigmatized, that this is just something that we know is going to be difficult forever. And we're here in the long run so that you don't get back to this idea that, OK, we've had six weeks.

and now we want you to come back to who you were. It's literally just providing a physical touch point in the organization to release expectations around going back to who you were. We talk a lot about resilience, and I always give a little bit of pushback on that word, which literally means bounce back. And I think we've got to be careful when we're saying, okay, we're here promoting a resilient organization. The truth is we're here.

to support employees evolve over time. We're here for the evolution of our employees. That's really what we want to do, grief or not. And so those ambassadors can help communicate that message much more effectively and in the long run.

And further to that, mean, organizations are dynamic. You've got people coming and going all of the time. You're typically not going to have the same population of employees for a long time. So when you've got people coming, new people coming into an organization, it's really important to have the infrastructure in place that can support them. Secondly, people typically don't just experience one loss within their working life.

we're experiencing multiple losses throughout the period of our productive years. So it's really important to have people who can support through all of those difficult times and also who have maybe some perspective and experience with the organization as well to be able to help navigate through that. think that's really important too.

It reminds me, I don't know what year this was, but I remember there was a huge push in organizations at one point to have respite rooms. Like where you could go during the middle of the day. Again, this is not to say we should usher all the grieving folks into the dungeon so that they can collaborate together, but it's that spirit of saying, look, this is an available resource to you at all times. And if we see you accessing it or talking about it or bringing the information alike, there's nothing wrong with that.

because we know this is not a short-term experience in your life.

That's beautifully stated. just even imagine as you're listening or watching that you walk into your workspace and there's a respite room or there's a space where you summon a peer or somebody that you trust to have conversations and the workplace already understands what is happening. Having these dedicated spaces in place can make a world of difference. At the end of the day, it's not necessarily about time off because depending on the severity of your loss, it could be a lifelong thing.

It's about expanding our capacity. agree with the word resilience that it's not a bounce back. I've personally redefined resilience as an ability to expand our capacity to hold the magnitude of life's experiences. And this includes in the personal and the professional. So I love that you are doing just that for companies through Bloomwell Partners, that you're helping them expand their capacity to, to

incorporate the vastness of the human experience in a way that's harmonious with the work environment, that's extremely powerful.

Well, and I think that if we engage these ideas of respite rooms and ambassadors, what that does for the leader is take the load off. Because I think there's so much fears the leader, just the title, this expectation like I've got to fix and oversee everything. But it's like, no, we're all here on the playing field. And each one on this field is going to be playing a different role. Yes, the leader will have some elements that are different than the colleagues, perhaps.

We all have a role to play, which is very, it's such a gorgeous picture of what humanity should be, because we all do have a role to play in supporting the greater humanity for everyone.

Let's use the analogy of, and this is so cliche in a way, but like you've broken your leg and you need to come back to work. The leader's job is to have a conversation with the person to say, okay, tell me about your functional ability. Tell me about your barriers. Tell me about whatever obstacles you have. Same with grief. This is the leader's job is really to facilitate, right?

the removal of barriers and obstacles within an operating context. And so if that is through connecting with peer support, if it's with workload, if it's with flexible hours, whatever that person can do within their control, that's what they can work with the employee to help navigate and, as you say, make that more of a gentle transition and smooth down those barriers. And I think that that really is it's not to have

all of the answers yourself, it's to have the awareness of with whom can I connect and how do I create the space for you to come back in as barrier free a way as possible.

This almost takes me back to your original question, Nina, about how to employees engage agency. I'm imagining a world where we have normalized grief in the workplace, that employee comes back, there's no longer an expectation that one person, aka the manager or supervisor, is the only person here to support, but we're able to expand our awareness of who else is here. Who else is here? And yes, the manager.

may not be the primary, it may be a colleague, it may be someone else. It's important to also, as much as the grieving person can, be aware who else is available. In my case, that was not my supervisor who knocked on the glass door and said I wanted to come in. That was a colleague who did that and it was a beautiful moment, but it helped me widen my lens enough to realize that I didn't want to quit the job, I just needed someone to witness what was going on.

Beautifully said. And let's say somebody is an employer, an organization, and they're like, okay, cool, but what is in it for me? Like, what's in it for our bottom line? How would you address that concern?

Well, we know that unsupported grief in the workplace has significant consequences, both for individual employees, but also for organizations. So you're looking at higher turnover, loss of key employees and positions that probably have excellent relationships with customers, clients, corporate memory that could be lost. It's also very expensive to replace somebody. It can cost up to 50 % of that person's annual salary to replace them.

So what's in it for organizations is not only their retention of key talent, but it's also fostering a culture where other employees, when they're talking about that organization, there's a reputational piece there as well to say like, man, when I came back from, you know, whatever devastation I went through, this is how my employer supported me. This is how I responded. And I'm loyal to that employer because of it.

And I want to attract other talented people to this organization because we have a supportive work culture. So I think that there are many different aspects for organizations, not only from a retention perspective and a turnover perspective, but also reputational.

And I think on the back end, the leader is going to feel less stress, right? There will be that acute stress of like, the person's back at work. my gosh, how do I handle that? But in the end, if we have these things in place, in the long run, it actually benefits the leader because now you're not having to deal with that combustion of, gosh, I'm the only person who has to of deal with this, if you will. We have these things in place to help this employee.

And as Janet mentioned, when an employee feels appreciated and seen, they're more likely to stay, which is going to help increase connection and longevity in the organization as a whole.

Not to mention the fact that every HR trend study from Deloitte to PWC to, mean, every consulting firm out there is going to tell you that emotional intelligence is the thing that leaders must have to be good at their jobs. We're not making widgets. Like this isn't what we do most of the time. You have to have a higher level of emotional awareness, self-awareness and communication skills.

frankly, in this post-industrial world that we live in, particularly as you mentioned AI, this is what separates us from machines. it's really, really, these are skills that are not nice to have. They are must haves now for any.

Absolutely. And I've talked to, have had countless conversations about the marked moment when somebody felt either supported or not supported in the workplace. And 100 % of the people that I have spoken with left that place of employment because of how they were treated or not treated during their.

I was right there. I was right there. And then that person came down the class. Yeah, it definitely matters. I will say on the back end of that interaction, that person became the ambassador. And there was such a sense of safety that it kept me there for three more years. And it turned into a beautiful friendship. leading up to that, not to say that we weren't friends, but just the depth of

connection, I was so deeply rooted that, yeah, it was really beautiful to be seen in that moment and beyond.

we're having this split in the type of work environments that we're seeing now where a lot of people are returning to the physical workspace and a lot of teams are going remote. So there's this location. let's touch on the remote teams, for example, somebody's bereaved. How do you address grief in a remote work environment?

It's such a great question because again, in this hybrid world that we live in work wise, it can be, it can feel really challenging, but I would say do the same thing that you were going to do if you were going to see that person in the office. Is it going to feel as organic? Maybe not. You're not walking by their desk, but you can still send them a Slack message. You can still send them a Teams message and say, Hey, I'm thinking about you. I'm here. You could call me anytime. Can we, can we set up a virtual coffee?

date.

whatever time, right? It may be a different medium, a different forum, but the outreach can still be the same. And similarly with managers, again, you have to think about how do you design that interaction, maybe a little bit differently if you're virtual, but the intent can still be the same. I want to connect. I want to make sure that you have what you need, the support around you, and check in with that person, even if you're doing it virtually.

It may require a little bit more of a higher degree of intentionality in a virtual space. But to Janet's point, it can sort of be like an out of sight, out of mind. That's the beauty of seeing people. However, I think on the leader's part, even documenting those key dates. So when the person comes back to work, you've already identified like this is when they experienced this loss. Documenting that.

I cannot tell you how incredible, I'm 12 and a half years past my mom's loss, my mom's death, and there's someone in my world who remembers that she died on December the 9th. And 12 and a half years later, it's inevitable. Sometimes it's a couple days off, but who cares? There's a remembering of that day, and it's just been really profound. That's something that a manager can do, right? Or say, hey, Mother's Day is coming up, Father's Day is coming up.

let me document that and maybe virtually send them a message or Slack, whatever, and in person, same thing. So I agree with Janet. I think we've got to be more intentional and strategic, but we can still show our presence in a virtual space.

Having that check-in culture can make a world of difference in person and remotely. we cannot underestimate the power of just acknowledging that something is difficult, that one particular day could be so difficult for somebody and reaching out on that date. As simple as that may sound, it's very powerful. I want to be mindful of your time and leave some room for maybe something I haven't touched on that you want to include in this conversation.

whatever feels right for you.

I'll just say just a simple reminder, and this is for all of us in and out of the workplace, at our core, we are all connected. And if we can remember that, whether it's our colleague going through something or a friend, their pain is our pain, and their joys are our joys, their sorrows are our sorrows, and so forth. And so just remembering that it truly is people to people. We're connected.

Yeah, just to that point, I would say, you know, we spend so much of our time and energy and our professional endeavors, and it can make such a huge difference in someone's life when they have supportive colleagues and a supportive manager around them. It can be life changing. So I would encourage everyone to think about how they can cultivate that kind of workplace for themselves.

You don't need to be in a leadership role to do that. Anyone can do that. And it really is a great investment, not only in your wellbeing, but in the wellbeing of the people that you work with.

That's good.

And how can people find information about Blue Mold Partners and how to work with you?

Yeah, they can head over to our website, which is growwithbloomwell.com. We're super excited. We're upgrading our website. It's going to be gorgeous. But yes, you can contact us there. You can also reach out directly to us through Instagram. We are at Bloomwell Partners through direct message or email us at bloomwellpartners.gmail.com. We'd love to connect with you and learn how we can best support your organization.

Wonderful. And I will also link our other conversations to the show notes so you can get to know more about each of their personal stories of loss because you're not just working in this space as professionals, you're also people who have experienced profound loss on a first basis level. So you understand it more fully. And what is one actionable takeaway that you can tell somebody who is facing grief in the workplace, whether that be an individual and or

an employer.

Mm-hmm.

I would say give yourself grace. We judge ourselves far more harshly than other people judge us. So if you're struggling, don't heap judgment on, just give yourself some grace to say, you know what, I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances. And that's what I can do right now. That's what I would offer.

Yeah.

I would say that grief can be a wonderful silencer of a lot of parts of who we are. So just to remember that your grief and your voice matters.

Absolutely. And if any of this conversation resonated, I highly encourage you to reach out to Janet and Dr. Mikkel through Bloomwell Partners. Everything will be in the show notes. And just understand that your experience is so very valid. And if you are a leader, a team leader, you're part of an organization, a company, and you're looking to incorporate more of this humanity, this connection, this ability to build a healthy culture in the workspace.

then by all means reach out. And I want to thank you both for your generosity of time. You have been wonderful. It's always a pleasure to see you and some of my favorite people. thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for being you.

No, thanks.

Nah, we're grateful.

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast. I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight, or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember, you are not alone.