HR’s role in helping employees grieve the loss of a pet

Do you consider your pets part of your family?

Nearly all pet owners (97%) say their furry companions are family, according to the Pew Research Center. As such, the grief associated with losing them can be devastating. And this can affect how employees show up to work, according to Erika Sinner, founder and CEO of marketing agency Directorie, and author of Pets Are Family.

Sinner shared advice with HR Brew for people pros whose employees are grieving the loss of a pet.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are takeaways for HR from the book?

I’ve always had pet bereavement leave in my company policies…But actually taking the leave last year when I lost my dog, Kingston, made me realize the stigma around it. I was worried my colleagues wouldn’t understand, or they would think it’s just a dog.

Compassionate policies, like pet bereavement leave, that shows your employee…we recognize your family structure includes your furry family members. You’re [not] leaving it up to chance that your frontline managers aren’t going to know what to do or what to say. Or your employees are going to feel like they have to go back to work the next day, or maybe they can’t talk about it, and they’re going to be miserable.

What resources does your book offer HR pros?

Losing a dog or a cat, or any type of animal…is actually as painful as losing human beings…I have that as the very first part of [the book], to just say, here’s why this matters, and what HR could be using to talk to their executive team…There’s also FAQs…around like, “How long do I give the bereavement leave for?...Do we count a bird?”...I have some answers in there too to help guide the HR team.

The third piece is manager training, or, how do you support your employees at work?...So that your managers don’t have that [response] of, “Well, it’s just a dog. Can’t you get back to work?”...Also, how do you think about reintegrating your employee back? Like, how do you help them reprioritize their tasks to keep their head above water?…I was talking to a company, and they’re like…“We have hourly people who work at a cash register”...So, maybe go to that employee once an hour and just say, “Hey, do you need to take a walk around the store, and I’ll cover the register?” It’s really just about acknowledging that the pain is real, and helping them manage through this initial shock period.

How can HR help managers be compassionate or empathetic?

It has to start from the top down, in terms of really pushing for an empathy-driven culture…then compassion is having compassionate policies, like pet bereavement…Even if the manager can’t understand all the way, there is a black-and-white policy that’s going to decide how your employee is going to be received when something like this happens. And that’s where I just feel like HR has such a beautiful role in being the safety net. That an employee can point to a policy and say…“My dog died, and I’m really upset. I’m going to go ahead and take that bereavement time off.”

Within my own company….we don’t just have meetings, we talk about moments that matter…checking in with [employees]. How are you building trust?...Also, not comparing grief…I’m not here to say whose grief is worse…It’s more about taking it back again to the empathy piece, and that you’ve normalized in your organization for an employee to say, “I’m not okay”...Because if somebody’s hiding it from you, they’re going to make mistakes, they’re going to miss things like the client deliverable…It really is your company’s brand reputation on the line.