Grief Comes to Work: A Trauma-Informed Perspective

A few months ago, I wrote about grief.

About the different kinds of grief we experience throughout our lives. The loss of relationships, friendships, versions of ourselves, dreams we thought would happen differently, and of course, the people we love.

I understood grief when I wrote that. Or at least I thought I did.

Then my mum died.

And I have realised that some grief cannot really be understood until you are living it.

This is my first blog since losing her, and writing it feels different. I wasn’t even sure whether I wanted to write yet, but writing has always been part of how I reflect, so here I am.

For a long time, a big part of my life was caring for my mum. I worked full time, led services, built a business, wrote, managed a home and lived an incredibly busy life, but alongside all of that, I was also her carer.

There were appointments, medication, oxygen, phone calls, hospital visits, worry, planning and constantly thinking ahead.

And then suddenly, that stops.

The person is gone, but so is the role you held for so long.

I’m grieving my mum, but I’m also starting to understand that I have to figure out who I am in a life where caring for her is no longer part of my everyday existence.

I don’t know what that looks like yet.

Grief doesn’t stay at home when we go to work

Tomorrow, I return to work.

And actually, I want to go back.

Not because I’m “better” or because my grief is finished. Far from it. But because, for me, work gives me structure. It gives my mind somewhere else to go for a while. It gives me something familiar when so much of my life suddenly feels unfamiliar.

For somebody else, returning to work so soon might feel completely impossible.

Neither is wrong.

And this is where I think trauma-informed workplaces really matter.

We have bereavement policies. We have compassionate leave. We arrange cover. We send flowers. We tell people to take the time they need.

All of those things matter.

But bereavement leave ends. Grief doesn’t.

Someone can return to work, attend meetings, answer emails, laugh with colleagues, make decisions and look completely like themselves.

And still be grieving deeply.

They may want to talk about the person they lost. Or, like me right now, they may actually need people not to constantly ask how they are.

They might need flexibility one day and complete normality the next.

There isn’t one correct way to support someone through grief. For me, the important thing is creating enough safety for someone to tell you what they need without feeling guilty about it.

This is bigger than compassionate leave

And there is a strategic point here for organisations too.

Being trauma-informed isn’t simply about having a good bereavement policy. It is about what happens when someone actually needs to use it, and particularly what happens when they come back.

Concentration may be different. Capacity may change from one day to another. There will be significant dates. There may be days when grief appears without warning.

Good leadership means recognising that without immediately assuming someone is no longer capable of doing their job.

Sometimes the most supportive thing a workplace can do is allow someone to work.

Sometimes it is giving them permission to step away.

Sometimes it’s flexibility.

And sometimes it is simply quietly making things a little easier without making them feel different from everyone else.

That’s why knowing your people matters. A policy can’t tell you what an individual person needs.

Trauma-informed doesn’t mean having the right words

I spend a lot of my professional life talking about trauma-informed practice, psychological safety, compassionate leadership and organisational culture.

Right now, I’m experiencing some of those principles from the other side.

And one thing that has become even clearer to me is that we don’t always need to fix things.

Grief cannot be fixed.

There isn’t a perfect sentence someone can say that will make me stop missing my mum.

People keep telling me to “be strong”, and I know those words come from a place of love. But right now, I don’t need to be strong, and I don’t want to be. I need to feel this. I need to cry when I need to cry, be angry when I’m angry, miss her when I miss her and allow my body and mind to process what has happened. Because grief has to go somewhere. If we constantly push it down in the name of being strong, our bodies often find another way of carrying it. Maybe strength in grief isn’t holding everything together. Maybe, sometimes, strength is allowing yourself not to.

What a workplace can influence is whether someone feels they have to hide what they’re going through in order to still be seen as professional.

Can someone say, “Today is difficult”?

Can they also say, “Please don’t ask me how I am today”?

Can they ask for support without feeling that people will question their ability to do their job?

To me, that is psychological safety too.

Figuring out who I am now

This is probably the part I’m still trying to understand myself.

I’m still a leader. A professional. A mother. A wife. A friend. A writer.

But I’m also a daughter learning how to live without her mum.

And after years of balancing caring for her with everything else in my life, there is suddenly a space where that responsibility used to be.

I don’t know what I will do with that space yet.

I’m beginning to understand that grief isn’t only about learning to live without someone. Sometimes it’s also about figuring out who you are when a role that shaped so much of your life suddenly isn’t there anymore.

And I think workplaces need to understand some of that too.

People don’t necessarily return from significant loss as exactly the same person who left.

Maybe we shouldn’t expect them to.

What does this mean for trauma-informed leadership?

It means not expecting grief to fit neatly between someone’s last day at work and their return date.

It means not assuming that because somebody is functioning, they are fine.

It means allowing people to be human while still recognising them as professionals.

It means compassion without removing autonomy.

Support without assumption.

And understanding that two things can be true at the same time.

Tomorrow, I will return to work.

I will answer emails, attend meetings, make decisions and slowly find my rhythm again.

And I will still miss my mum.

Both are true.

At Nova & Root, we talk a lot about building organisations where people feel seen, heard and valued. Those words mean something slightly different to me today.

Because sometimes being trauma-informed isn’t about doing something extraordinary.

Sometimes it’s simply remembering that the person sitting across from us may be carrying something we cannot see, and making enough room for them to carry it in the way they need to.

Grief comes to work with us.

The question is whether our workplaces make us feel that we have to leave it at the door.