Trust as a Policy-Making Lens

I was turning the key to lock my apartment at 6:00 am on a Thursday morning, and I could hear my phone ringing inside. “Who would be calling me at this hour? I’ll let it go to voicemail.” I was headed downtown to host a two-day focus group where about twenty high-level subject matter experts were gathered. It was “go time” after several months of planning and preparation. Instantly I remembered the consultant who was in town to help facilitate the event. Perhaps he needed something! I unlocked the door in a mad scramble to pick up the phone before it stopped ringing. The Caller ID was my grandparents’ number.

My grandfather, a WWII veteran and former prisoner of war, spoke directly in a no-nonsense tone and told me my mother’s sister Jean had died at 3:00 am that morning. There was not a lot of information to share at that time. We would learn in the days to come that she had been suddenly stricken with a rare, almost always fatal blood condition and had died just six hours after a neighbor brought her to the emergency room. My grandfather asked me to be the one to let my brother and parents know. In my shock, I said “Of course,” and we hung up. He was not a cold man. He had a job to do, and he had deputized me to get the word out to my family.

What he had asked of me was not a simple task. My parents had retired a year prior and were full-time RVers. Being the early days of cell phones, they never turned theirs on unless they were going to make a call. I wasn’t sure how to find them. I started by calling campgrounds they had mentioned recently. I left tear-filled messages on answering machines describing their vehicles. “They have Illinois license plates…Can you please look for them and have them call their daughter?” It was the hardest and longest morning of my life, knowing that I was about to break my mother’s heart and this news would change her life forever.

That was Thursday. Once I connected with my parents later that day, we had to find a way to get them back to Chicago as soon as possible. I called airlines and even a friend who was a pilot. In the end, my parents decided to drive straight through the following day, and I was waiting outside for them when they pulled up to my brother’s house. Being together was all that we knew to do. We held each other close and held each other up the best we could that weekend.

My Aunt Jean’s funeral was scheduled for Monday morning.

Over the course of this unforeseen, and horrific experience for our family, I had missed three days of work.

When I turned in my timesheet, I marked those days as bereavement absences. Later that week, I received a terse and unsympathetic voice mail from our HR staff. “Since it was just your aunt who died, you only get one day off.” Our policy did not include aunts as immediate family (many policies don’t), and I was chastised for thinking it did. Hadn’t I read the employee handbook? I was hurt, I was grieving, I was angry at the insensitivity. My Aunt Jean was like my second mom. She was my biggest fan. She lived with us when I was very young. Our families vacationed together every summer. She was immediate family to me.

I had a discussion with my boss and I furiously asked him, “Of the three days I missed, which two should I have worked? The day I was searching for my parents? The day my mother arrived and crumbled into my arms? Or the day of my aunt’s funeral? Which ones?”

To his credit, he negotiated with HR to allow me to have three days of paid bereavement, though I suspect he was more afraid of me and my rawness than anything else. Regardless, I will never forget how much that meant to me. He was not a perfect boss, and he was definitely not my favorite boss. Yet, when I needed flexibility, he supported me in a way that he had the power to do. Interestingly, I was told I couldn’t tell anyone about this “special treatment.”

I spent a lot of time over the following years thinking about that bereavement policy. How many other dedicated employees had experienced something similar, and how had they reacted to it? Did they perceive a message that their grief was not valid, or that they were weak, or that someone thought they were trying to get away with something? Had the experience alienated them or impacted their commitment to the organization? Who the heck decides who immediate family is? Why would grief be limited to one-size-fits-all, when empirically, it is not? How come these policies aren’t flexible? I suspect the answers lie in a mash-up of historically-traditional family structure, outdated Theory X management practices, lack of inclusiveness into the definitions of both family and immediate family, and limited perspectives on grief and expectations for what it means to experience loss. Just a few minor factors, right?

It is impossible to judge what is going to shatter someone else’s heart and make it literally impossible for them to focus on work. Apart from more “traditional” losses, there are countless personal traumas that policies cannot comprehensively take into account. However, they are all valid reasons for not being able to temporarily work.

Consistency and clarity are important in policies. At the same time, Leaders have an opportunity to build in flexibility during policy revision and creation. Doing so codifies and communicates respect for the members of our teams as unique individuals. These policies can serve to reinforce the trust culture and normalize vulnerability. There is no better way to empower our team members to use discernment when making decisions, both of a professional and personal nature.

When I talk about flexible policies, I get the question, “but what about people who would take advantage of flexibility?” Yes, there may be employees who stretch the policy beyond its intent. That said, when Leaders work to build a foundation of trust, staff at all levels demonstrate greater commitment to the organization, its mission, and the integrity of the relationships within it. In a healthy organization, abuse of such policies is minimal, and productivity and performance are higher.

My Aunt Jean’s premature death changed our family forever. It is one of those experiences that impacts your life not only in the moment but equally in the lasting lessons we carry forward. I could not have learned those lessons without experiencing that loss, and I honor my Aunt Jean’s memory when acknowledging the pain of others’ experiences.

Policies that encourage flexibility and promote trust, free us to lead with our hearts through incredibly tough days.

Additional Perspectives on Bereavement Policies:

Mallick, M. (2020). It’s Time to Rethink Corporate Bereavement Policies https://hbr.org/2020/10/its-time-to-rethink-corporate-bereavement-policies

Maitlis, S. and Petriglieri, G. (2019). When a Colleague is Grieving; How to Provide the Right Kind of Support https://hbr.org/2019/07/when-a-colleague-is-grieving

Rabasca Roepe, L. (2017) How to Support Employees Through Grief and Loss https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0917/pages/how-to-support-employees-through-grief-and-loss.aspx

Schumway, E. (2021) Why It May Be Time for a More Compassionate Bereavement Policy https://www.hrdive.com/news/why-it-may-be-time-for-a-more-compassionate-bereavement-policy/607374/

Ward, M. (2020) American jobs aren't allowing a grieving nation the time needed to mourn the deaths of loved ones https://www.businessinsider.com/bereavement-leave-asking-time-off-work-funeral-2020-5

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash.