Beyond Bereavement: A New Approach to Supporting Employees Through Life's Hardest Moments

BY Jennifer Yoshikoshi | December 09, 2025

The length of average bereavement leave is just five-and-a-half days, but the impact of grief goes far beyond a work week. According to research done at Empathy, a platform that offers support for individuals experiencing loss, the effects of grief can last on average 16 months or longer.  

During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Midtown Manhattan conference, Sophie Ruddock, chief operating officer at Empathy and Nicole DuBois, chief HR officer at Graham Windham spoke about how companies can support employees experiencing loss. 

When employees feel grief, the negative impacts of it can show up in the forms of reduced productivity, absenteeism, burnout and reliance on other team members to pick up the slack. 

Data shows that “79% of employees considered quitting their jobs after a major loss, in part because of how their employers supported or didn’t support them,” said Ruddock. She added that 76% feared they would be fired due to their inability to fully bring themselves up to their regular work standards. 

Graham Windham has partnered with Empathy to provide its employees with bereavement benefits and the company has already seen the positive impact it’s making—boosting employee satisfaction and retention, says DuBois.  

“When we can talk about what we bring, and that we care about our staff beyond what they produce and what their deliverables are, we actually care about them as humans,” said DuBois. “It makes all the difference from both a retention standpoint and a recruitment standpoint.”

Topics about loss and how to support employees through this challenging time can often be taboo, “but it is also one of the most human topics,” said Ruddock. 

Another collective challenge was the pandemic. When unexpected crises hit, company leaders often retreat behind closed doors to find solutions for their teams. DuBois emphasizes that to truly empower and enable managers, they need that same level of support themselves.

At Graham Windham, leaders are provided with training and coaching through an online platform. Any employee has the opportunity to be matched with a professional coach of their choice. This resource can serve as an additional support around navigating burnout, stress, challenging conversations and balancing work and life, says DuBois. 

“We know that pouring into our leaders is a critical thing for us to do if we're to sustain our workforce,” she said.

DuBois says the company’s mission is to keep up with innovation and think “about ways to reinvent.” With that in mind, she discussed the conflicting feelings that currently surround the idea of incorporating artificial intelligence to the workforce. 

Nicole DuBois, CHRO at Graham Windham, shared the company's experience partnering with Empathy during the session titled, "Beyond Bereavement: A New Approach To Supporting Employees Through Life's Hardest Moments"

As employees fear their jobs will be replaced by AI, DuBois assures her teams that rather than pushing people out of their positions, AI can be used to increase efficiency. “Some of these tools can become almost like a thought partner in our work,” she said. 

Empathy is also exploring the ways that AI can provide its members with faster support and resources for the various processes that are involved after the loss of a loved one, including planning funerals, writing obituaries, closing down personal accounts and more, says Ruddock. 

“I really think about how [AI] can actually drive a much more personalized experience for someone, and in our case, provide much more personalized guidance for someone that is experiencing loss,” Ruddock said. 

AI can be used to “help humans do what humans do best, and not replace the human experience,” allowing for people to take the time they need to manage grief rather than filling out complex paperwork. 

“Care in these moments must be continuous. It’s not conditional. It’s not time bound,” said Ruddock. “That’s where technology, alongside a deeply human strategy, can really complement it, and allow that innovation to be sort of human first, but complemented by technology. Not the other way around.”

Jennifer Yoshikoshi is a local news and education reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Empathy, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.

(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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