Lessons I Wish I Never Learned: How to Handle (and not Handle) the Death of an Employee
Maybe we should have seen the signs. In retrospect, it is hard to imagine how we didn’t. But even if we had seen them, at what point do you cross the line into the domestic and personal world of an employee. When you see them hurting? When you see them cry? When their emotional burden is so heavy that they can’t bear to come to work? “Are you OK” doesn’t seem like enough but “I think you should talk to a professional” feels judgmental and distancing. I don’t know… I guess I just wish with all of my heart that we could have done something. Because it hurts. Because we all wish to still be greeted with her smile.
Emily left us too soon. She was remembered at her memorial as funny, deeply caring, and imaginative. She was known to us as genuine, hardworking, and kind. As a company that values kindness, she was a catch who fit seamlessly into our team, making friendships and connections both in and outside of our cafe.
We learned of Emily’s passing on a Tuesday morning when a voicemail came in very early from her father. This post is about what we, as an employer, did in response to this news and the immense grief felt by our whole staff in the days and weeks that followed.
The Day of… and my First Lesson in What Not to Do.
I’m no journalist, but I wish I had taken a page from the rules of reporting on a crisis. As tempting as it is, do not get out ahead of it: wait until you have all of the information and facts before you start informing anyone except those need-to-know employees. In this case, her manager needed to know to fill the shift and our executive team needed to know to plan how to move forward.
The most critical misstep we made at this juncture was to stick to our fundamental value of transparency. This should have been an exception. We wanted all of our employees to hear from us what had happened and have time to process the news before hearing it from anyone else. Looking back, who else would they have possibly heard it from? Waiting a few hours to speak to both of her parents and understand the situation rather than have the news roll out as it developed would have lessened the drawn out day of wondering what else was coming.
Once we had spoken to everyone on staff, we closed the cafe at noon and offered our headquarters as a gathering place for the staff that night. I ordered food and drinks and a masseuse and we all came together to share memories and condolences. To have our whole staff together that night was critical to build a caring community for the tough weeks that followed. I feel confident that this was the right thing to do and am glad we had the resources and space to provide our staff with a temporary respite.
The Day After: Condolences and Apologies
When we closed our cafe on Tuesday, we posted the following to our company Instagram and Facebook:
When we reopened the next morning we were grateful to find so many kind words of support and compassion.
But we were unprepared for the questions. How did she die? How old was she? Was she on drugs? How did you find out? Was she killed? Did she have a terminal illness?
You can probably imagine how hard this made the grieving process for our employees at the front lines fielding these questions as they just tried to make it through that first day without Emily.
Our employees later told us in no uncertain terms that we really messed this one up.
We thought our continued commitment to transparency would lead our customers to help support our struggling community. And they did! But this atmosphere also unintentionally made everything a lot harder. There was no escape for our baristas trapped behind the counter being barraged with reminders that Emily was forever gone. I want take full responsibility for the decisions made regarding our social media approach and also apologize to our employees for doing anything to worsen their pain.
The Weeks After: A Sense of Place and a Place of Grieving
Everyone heals at their own pace. Some of our employees, myself included, took to social media to connect with friends and remember Emily. This post is from one of our cherished and most senior baristas, Jose.
We provided information on resources through Kaiser, our health insurer. We closed the cafe the day of Emily’s memorial and we rented a van to drive the whole staff down to remember her along with her family and friends. We contacted grief counselors and checked in regularly with all of our employees to make sure they were ok. Some people had a harder time than others. Some needed to leave the cafe for good, as the ghost of Emily’s spirit lingered there for them, and that was OK. I shared my own mental health struggles and experience with local psychiatry and psychology providers to help facilitate open communication around ongoing problems and new struggles.
I don’t know how much of this helped, but I lost plenty of sleep trying to think of any possible way to care for our staff. Sadly, there is no way to do what we all wanted: to have Emily back in our family.
And then, we had a Party.
We had already planned to have our annual holiday party at the end of January. It felt weird to celebrate in such a time of mourning, but it was also a much-needed release. We ate Korean food and we dressed up and we did something I’m sure Emily would have loved for us to do. We sang.
Emily: may you rest in peace. You are missed.
