Organizations lack guidelines on how to reintegrate bereaved employees into the work environment (Gilbert and Kelloway, 2021). In this master's thesis, we set out to develop recommendations for organizations to support such employees in their successful return. Since grief at work is a poorly researched phenomenon, we first had to examine the individual experiences of bereaved employees. We focused on their experience of returning to work after the death of a loved one, the relationship between grief and work, and the support of their organizations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in a sample of 12 permanently employed women with an average age of 46.4 years (SD = 10.7 years), who had experienced the loss of a loved one from 1 to 5 years prior to the study. Our analysis followed the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis. The bereaved employees were grateful for expressions of compassion from organizational members, but they experienced distance from some individuals and could miss personal contact. Their mental and physical condition was different than before the loss, and they noticed changes in their work behaviour and attitude towards work. Returning to the workplace could bring many positive consequences, but only with a stable work environment and quality social relationships – in the absence of these prerequisites, the return was much more demanding for the bereaved. The participants talked about the support of the work environment substantially more than the support of the organizations. The most important aspects were the workplace being informed of the loss, the acknowledgment of the loss, the pressure for an earlier return, the compassion and willingness of organizational members to help, the flexibility of working hours and the workplace environment, and the consideration of the individual needs of the bereaved. We have created a list of recommendations for employers and other organizational members.
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