How to respond and console someone at work who is grieving

Rather than staying silent, you’re better off making small gestures of support to a mourning colleague, say bereavement counsellors. — dpa

Losing a loved one brings grief that can’t simply be switched off at the workplace. And when co-workers of the bereaved learn of the death, many are unsure of how to behave in an appropriate, supportive way.

“A co-worker’s uncertainty often causes them to remain silent or to avoid the bereaved, ” says Ursula Engelfried-Rave, who is a research fellow for the Chair of Cultural Sociology at the University of Bonn in Germany and has studied grief consolation at the workplace for years.