It's All About People - 3rd October 2024

READ TIME - 4 minutes

Welcome back

This week’s It’s All About People covers:

 😢 how to support team members going through a bereavement

🌹 new legal right to bereavement leave - what you need to do

💯 Labour’s 100 day employment law changes update

📆 Events this month

Today would have been my wonderful Grandad’s birthday - he would have been 103 years old. Excuse the image quality - from the days before digital photos!

I simply adored my Grandad, a great role model as a husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.

He was a business owner like me, with his wonderful haberdashery shop. Also like me he did a lot of voluntary work, and he is my inspiration for doing this.

Therefore, this week’s email is all about supporting team members who have a bereavement - as when you do they will really appreciate it.

🤗Why Offer Support (hoping it is obvious but just in case) 

As HR professionals and business leaders, we understand that our team are what makes our organisation a success, and that means supporting them through all of life's moments — even the hardest ones. 💔

The National Bereavement Alliance states that one in five people will experience a significant bereavement in any one year. 

When an employee experiences a loss, it’s critical to offer empathy and flexibility to help them through their grief.

Grieving employees often face emotional challenges that can affect their performance and well-being. Offering thoughtful support not only helps them through a difficult time, but it also builds loyalty, trust, and morale within the workplace. Ultimately, caring for your people makes for a stronger, more resilient team.

Research from Marie Curie also showed that 43% of employees who had been bereaved felt pressurised to return to work before they were ready.

🆘 How You Can Support Employees 

📃 Bereavement Leave Policies: more on this below and the imminent law change, but regardless of any government statutory requirements – having a bereavement policy and plan for support, can help those affected and also line managers so that they can support people when they need it most.

⌚️ Flexible Work Options: Employees often require more flexibility beyond initial leave. Offering part-time return options or remote work can make the transition back smoother.

☎️ Mental Health Resources: If you have Mental Health Champions then make sure the employee knows they are there to support. You can also provide access to Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) with grief counselling or therapy .

👩‍💼 Creating a Supportive Culture: Encourage managers to lead with empathy and provide training on how to navigate conversations around grief. They are not being grief counsellors, but showing support and empathy.

📃 Developing a Bereavement Policy

We know that many of you reading this will already have this covered in your organisation, but we also know that research from Marie Curie charity in 2021 found that only a third of employers have one.

One of the Government’s pledges for employment law is to have statutory bereavement leave - but there are no details yet, so the key areas to consider are:

- The amount of leave that is granted for bereavement. some types of bereavement already have statutory rights (leave and pay), including miscarriage, stillbirth and loss of a child.

- What type of bereavement is covered, many policies will outline close relatives and friends.  However, as we all know family can be complex, so we always recommend flexibility (at Gateway HR we include pets, as they are family as far as we are concerned)

- If the leave is paid and if so for how long.

🌹 Making Work Pay update

Our monthly webinars on this topic our proving very popular, you can find the link for the October webinar in the events list below.

If you have not already downloaded it, you can download our guidance on the changes here or take a quick assessment as to how ready you are here.

That’s all for this week – have a great week all.

Emma 

P.S. For those of you reading this who are members of our HR Hub then we have a Compassionate and Bereavement Policy that you can download in the Family Leave section. We will make any updates when the law becomes clear and of course notify you.

 P.P.S.  If you are not a Hub member you can join here for only £45/month for all your HR needs.

P.P.P.S If we have not connected on LinkedIn yet, I would love to connect

Events to Join in the coming weeks (click on the links to join us)

Winter Blues - A Focus on Mental Health in the Workplace(free to all our clients or book a place if not) - 8th October 12pm

HR Clinic (free to all, come and ask your HR questions) - 22nd October 12pm 

Make Work Pay – Labour’s 100 Day Plan for HR & Leaders (Free Webinar) - 23rd October 12-1pm