Years ago, a colleague of mine lost her husband in a sudden and devastating auto accident. In an instant, she became a single parent to young children, responsible for a large mortgage with little savings and burdened by enormous grief. She was also leading a high-profile initiative. After a brief leave for the funeral, she returned to work because she felt she had no choice. What met her was not structured support, but sustained pressure to deliver.

Senior leaders and co-workers offered condolences that were awkward and unsure. For a short period, there were compassionate conversations and visible concern. Then attention shifted back to business as usual. 

The empathy was sincere, but brief. The unspoken expectation was that she would regain her footing quickly. She did not. I watched her struggle under the combined weight of loss and professional demand.

Over the course of my career, I have seen many forms of crisis enter the workplace. Deaths of loved ones, cancer diagnoses, caregiving responsibilities, suicide, mental health emergencies, substance abuse crises. These events are rarely isolated. A loss has a ripple effect that can destabilize finances, child care, housing and emotional well-being. Sometimes multiple hardships arrive at once, compounding strain. What begins as one incident often becomes a prolonged season of disruption.

Organizations, like friends and neighbors, tend to cluster support in the immediate aftermath. There may be flowers, meal trains and heartfelt messages. Leaders check in during the first week or two, or even the first few months. Yet grief has a long tail. Anniversaries reignite sorrow. Medical treatments are prolonged. Court proceedings drag on. The disruption continues long after someone is presumed to have recovered.

The challenge for leaders is not whether to respond, but how. In the Harvard Business Review article “How Leaders Can Practice Wise Empathy,” authors Nick Hobson and Gregory J. Depow argue that empathy must be exercised with discernment. “Empathy isn’t always a good thing,” they write. “What matters most … is whether leaders choose to deploy their empathy in the right way.” They distinguish between sharing emotions and caring about them. Sharing involves absorbing another person’s distress, which can heighten strain and burnout for leaders. Caring combines compassion with steadiness and an action-oriented focus on support.

That distinction matters deeply during employee crises. Leaders do not need to mirror an employee’s grief in order to validate it. They do need to acknowledge hardship, regulate their own emotional reactions and create conditions that make continued contribution possible. Effective empathy is often quiet but consistent and responsive.

The Forbes article “How Leaders Can Support Their Employees in Times of Crisis or Disaster” emphasizes that meaningful support requires more than symbolic gestures. Flexibility in scheduling, temporary workload adjustments, clear communication and visible prioritization of well-being send a stronger message than a one time expression of sympathy. When organizations respond with practical accommodations, employees are more likely to feel valued rather than exposed.

Transparent but respectful communication is essential. Teams notice when someone is absent or visibly struggling. Leaders can acknowledge a situation without disclosing private details. A message such as, “Our colleague is facing a serious family matter and will be away. Let’s respect their privacy while supporting one another” reduces rumor while preserving dignity. The employee should always have agency in deciding what is shared.

Managers themselves need support in these moments. They may be personally affected while also accountable for results. HR partnership and executive coaching can help managers navigate what to say, how to redistribute work and how to avoid overcorrecting with either avoidance or excessive intrusion. Workload shifts should be transparent and time bound. The expectation that gratitude should come from the party who experienced a crisis may not be realistic if they are still navigating complicated emotions; it is the responsibility of leaders to express appreciation openly to those who step up so that additional effort does not become silent absorption by high performers. 

Most important, check-ins must continue well beyond the immediate aftermath of a crisis. Support should not fade after the first few weeks, but extend six months later, a year later or even more, especially around meaningful milestones such as anniversaries that can quietly reignite grief. Leaders should remain attentive when new layers of difficulty emerge, such as the surviving parent entering hospice long after the funeral of the other parent, a legal case resurfacing or a second crisis unfolding before the first has fully resolved. Grief and disruption rarely move in a straight line, and consistent, thoughtful follow up signals that care was never meant to be temporary.

Every organization still has work to accomplish, and while supporting team members through difficult times is essential, employers are not a substitute for mental health professionals. Individuals experiencing crisis need access to appropriate resources beyond the workplace, including professional counseling and personal support networks. What organizations can provide, however, is stability, flexibility and understanding, conditions that reassure employees that they will not have to navigate hardship alone.

When crisis enters the workplace, people pay close attention to how leaders respond. Silence can breed isolation and speculation, while too much disclosure can compromise privacy. Leaders who practice wise empathy, pairing compassion with clear communication and remaining present long beyond the aftermath strengthen their teams. In the end, how an organization responds in its hardest moments defines its culture far more powerfully than any statement of values.

I reached out to leaders to ask about specific practices to support employees through long-term personal crises, and how leaders can ensure that support continues well beyond the first few weeks.

Nataliya Boychenko Stone, senior vice president and market leader, Holmes Murphy

In my research and in my work with employers, I have seen that the way leaders respond in the first moments of an employee’s loss or trauma can either build trust or quietly erode it. Immediately, leaders should acknowledge what has happened with humanity, reduce unnecessary pressure and clearly communicate available support. Silence or avoidance often creates more harm than leaders intend. What I have also learned is that most organizations fail to prepare their leaders for these critical conversations.

Over time, support must extend beyond empathy. Organizations need alignment between leadership behavior and accessible systems, such as benefits, flexibility and clear guidance that leaders feel confident using. Trust is strengthened through ongoing support and consistency. When organizations prepare leaders in advance and follow through over time, they send a powerful message: People matter, even when life is hard.

Jeanine Buckingham, HR director, Orchestrate Hospitality

We reinforce with managers that every person’s path in grief and crisis is traveled differently. Some employees want to work as soon as possible to distract from their pain or because they need the income more than ever and some may feel they can never imagine a return to their previous normal. 

Most times the employee doesn’t remember their initial conversation of notifying us that their life has just been drastically changed. What they do remember is how they felt when we replied. That response should always be ‘We got you here, be where you need to be right now.’

The hardest part of the journey for anyone is that the customers keep coming through the doors and the world is still moving even at the intervals that their life has stood still. As leaders remembering that in the middle of it all, there are the times that they bump that scar, a regular customer asks about their family or a song in the playlist that runs through the store audio takes them out of their game for a few seconds, a few hours, a few days.

Ryan Crane, executive director, NAMI Iowa

When an employee experiences profound loss or trauma, the most important first step is simple, human acknowledgment. Leaders should reach out personally, express care without excessive emotion and immediately offer to reduce pressure, whether that means flexible scheduling, workload redistribution or extended leave options. No one does their best work in acute grief, and glossing over it may erode trust.

 Over time, the real test begins: Grief does not resolve on a business timeline. Leaders should schedule thoughtful check-ins months later, remain flexible and proactively revisit workload expectations rather than waiting for the employee to ask. Organizations can also normalize conversations about mental health and ensure managers are trained to respond with steadiness, not avoidance.

When employees see that support and compassion are sustained – and not situational – they learn they are valued.

Jeremy Smith, CEO, Affinity Credit Union

Supporting an employee through a major life event requires genuine presence and understanding of their individual needs. Recognizing that everyone processes such moments differently, it’s crucial for companies to meet employees where they are in their personal journey, regardless of the stage they’re in. Taking the time to listen and respond empathetically fosters trust and reassurance, helping employees feel valued and supported during challenging times.