Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to answer my preliminary question “How to deal with loss and grief in the workplace?” There are several articles and stories that have been addressed in this paper that deals with loss and grief in the workplace. This literature review explores what grief is, its processes, the different impacts loss and grief have on the workplace, and the various ways to cope up with the grieving process – from the bereaved, co-workers, and employer’s perspective.

Introduction

People can experience personal and professional losses from many different sources. Losses can result from a death or any significant life-changing event such as job loss, relationship loss, loss of home, the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease and other more private losses like experiencing a miscarriage (Dr. Kristi Dyer, 2009).

Understandably, grief, the response to these losses, can and most often does follow employees and employers alike into the workplace, affecting people's work performance on several different levels (Dr. Kristi Dyer, 2009).

What is Grief and it’s Process?

Grief is a natural painful response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering an individual feels when something or someone he loves is taken away. Like all other emotions it can be unpredictable and usually incorporates sadness, fear, and guilt after any particular loss. If someone associates grief with the death of a loved one, this type of loss often causes the most intense grief that incorporates unbearable pain to the bereaved individual (Melinda & Jeanne, 2012).

Moreover, grief is experienced from the moment we start breathing, we tend to loose the secure and safe world of the mother’s womb to arrive in a loud, cold, alien place, and even from this first moment the sense of loss we feel is a solitary one (Andrews-Ahearn & E Elaine, 2009).

Life’s is full