Join us for our July Monthly Meeting!
Presentation Title: Responding to and Supporting Bereaved Employees
Topic: Examining Bereavement Leave Policies and Response Practices for Employees Grieving the Death of a Loved One
Brief Synopsis of Program: There is no national bereavement leave policy, and only five U.S. states have enacted statewide policies. This leads to many inconsistencies for each workplace, and often a lack of standards for providing employees with needed support after the loss of a close loved one. Certified grief recovery specialist and author on the topic of grief response, Michelle Cramer will provide guidance for creating an appropriate and effective bereavement leave policy and response system.
Learning Objectives:
- Examining the importance of a written, concise and effective bereavement leave policy.
- Responding appropriately to a bereaved employee, so as not to make the weight of their grief worse.
- Setting appropriate expectations for a bereaved employee’s return to work.
- Communicating those expectations and utilizing appropriate workplace boundaries to support a bereaved employee.
Meet Our Speaker:
Michelle L. Cramer founded On Angels' Wings in 2013 after seeing a need to serve families in the community; OAW provides free ongoing support and grief recovery services for families with a medically-fragile child or who lose a child at birth, starting with free therapeutic photography. Since inception, the organization has provided over 1800 photo sessions to over 1500 families, serving the state of Missouri and beyond, with over 100 active volunteer photographers. In 2020, Michelle became an Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Method Specialist in order to better serve the families the organization encounters. In June 2022, Michelle wrote and published “Unshattered Grief: Helping others through loss without breaking them... again.” She desires to change the way society handles someone grieving, allowing them the space to do so without limitations or expectations. This passion led her to start providing training and consulting on handling bereaved employees, including evaluation of HR bereavement leave policies, and aiding managerial staff on appropriate response strategies. She is currently advocating to state officials the need for a state-wide bereavement leave policy.
