A week after my wife died (1990) I returned to work teaching unemployed students the skills needed to secure gainful employment. On the inside I was an emotional mess and on the outside I wore my “I’m Okay Mask”. For 12 months I drove to and from work and I did not remember any road features between home and my workplace in that time! I was on automatic pilot.

I mention this because I believe insufficent attention is given to workers who suffer a bereavement with respect to ‘safety on the job’ and in my case traveling to and from work along with student workshop activities that involved training students in the safe use of power tools.

Organisations need to be aware of the risks associated with workers dealing with ‘grief and loss’ especially if the worker is involved in work activities that involve the use or operation of any type of powered equipment or in any commercial activity that might impact on the company legally or financially.

The worker clearly wants to keep his/her job, the company needs to be continually focused on risk management and the worker needs to make an extra effort to stay safe.

It would be interesting to hear how organisations manage the issues of grief and loss for their workers.