In recent years, the Irish Hospice Foundation has provided training and advice to many companies and organisations to help them support employees who have become bereaved.

In this time, we have been touched not only by the poignant experiences of bereaved employees, but also by the compassion and goodwill shown by employers. Managers generally want to do the right thing, but often are not sure what that is and have no policy or standard to fall back on.

We have now published a document aimed at helping organisations to develop a bereavement policy and take a first step in pro-actively managing employee grief in the workplace.  This publication is available free of charge from the Irish Hospice Foundation or can be downloaded by clicking on Grief at Work.

GRIEF AT WORK: DEVELOPING A BEREAVEMENT POLICY, is divided into six sections, covering:

• The potential impact of bereavement and grief on employees
• Practical suggestions for supporting them
• Key elements to consider in developing a bereavement policy
• Practical considerations in interpreting and implementing such a policy
• A list of bereavement resources.

It also includes:

• A sample bereavement policy text, which is intended to serve as a template and can be adapted to the needs of individual organisations
• The summarised findings of a recent IHF survey on current bereavement policy and practice in Irish workplaces.

For further information on this publication, or on our training activities in this area, please contact Breffni McGuinness, tel. 01-6793188 or email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it