Bereavement Policies in Healthcare
My passion for moving into healthcare consultant work is to incorporate employee health as not just a consideration into policy making, but prioritization. We often incorporate fiscal consideration and standardization. Yet we have many gaps as it relates to the support of physical and mental health of employees. Therefore, as policies migrate onward with time, this directly affects recruitment and retention in healthcare settings. As most know: this is a HUGE issue right now which ripples into an even larger issue of access to care (I.e., wait times to get in, time between appointments, etc.). Recruitment and retaining employees is patient centered because of people are not there and taken care of? Your doors can’t stay open and then you cannot care for patients.
I am going to tackle one area today: Grief and bereavement policies. Just in case you are new to the workforce or were unfamiliar with this - Grief and bereavement policies are often in place under Human Resources (HR) policies. They outline a company’s practices as it relates to paid and unpaid time off when a loved one passes away.
Let’s jump in.
Company policies re: grief and loss (I.e., bereavement) baffle me.
1. Most outline who or what constitutes as “family,” which is often stuck in the early 1900s such as spouse, parents, siblings, grandparents, child. It often does not include aunts and uncles, cousins, chosen, or pets. I’m unsure how someone gets to decide who my or your family is.
2. Three (3) days of bereavement is covered and pretty standard which also triggers my “need for change,” mindset. On top of that - policies often giving a time frame when you CAN use it (I.e., within a week of the loss, etc.). You allow 6+ weeks for the birth of a child but the death of a loved one, “Get over it in 3 days.” No. We need to treat death differently even respecting cultural differences in end of life practices. Cultures celebrate losses sometimes for weeks, months, year. There has to be space to accommodate people grieve differently. Example: Day of the Dead or Día de Muertos or Día de los Muertos happens annually. There should be respect for this and allowing someone to take off and use bereavement if they choose. This is a DEI issue.
3. A tragic loss such as a suicide or homicide of a loved one is NOT CONSIDERED a “life changing” event as it relates to your benefits. So as an example, when my brother died tragically, I wanted to change my benefits especially for FSA, etc. so I could attend grief groups, get back into therapy, etc. I was told, “there was nothing they could do because of the policy,” and I had to wait until the open enrollment period.
4. There is ZERO PURPOSE in making your employee send you an obituary. None. None. None. None. Zip. I don’t need to add more to this except the last thing on my mind is proving to you someone I love died.
5. I have worked many places from healthcare to nonprofit, primarily in mental and behavioral health. Never ONCE did I receive a kind message about my loss. HR, if you’re asking for this “proof,” then you can take 3 minutes to write a kind message or send a letter. Or a nice message with grief resources.
6. Short-term or long-term FMLA is often denied for grief or complex grief. Even though the DSM V incorporates evidenced based, medical diagnostics re: bereavement. Example: Prolonged Grief Disorder.
HR policies in healthcare have some work to do. I don’t care what “other people are doing.” You’re HR in an institution which promotes and supports health of others and it’s about time we show the same respect for people keeping your doors open. Make the change, be the change. Supporting your employees IS patient centered and I will die on that hill.
Portion of this written and originally posted by Anne C. Totero via LinkedIn on 2/12/2023 at 08:25
#healthcare #mentalhealth #nonprofit #policies #hr
