Last week a colleague of ours took his own life. To us it was very sudden and a great shock as we had no idea, and to us he was always happy and well loved and very needed within our company. Therefore his loss affected all of us rather significantly.
Although it has been great that everyone has bonded together at this time, what surprised me a lot was that a professional grief counsellor has not yet been 'hired', or even thought about being 'hired' to help the staff deal with the loss. Where I come from - Australia -, a counsellor (actually multiple to deal with the 200 employees here) would have already been present on the morning that everyone was informed of the death.
Who knows what is 'normal' culture for the dutch in dealing with deaths, especially in relation to deaths of a colleague that impacts the entire company. Just wondering what other cultures do. The rest of the process (funeral etc.) has been pretty regular for western/catholic culture.
Where I am from - The States - they do not provide Grief Counseling unless an incident, suicide, murder etc happens on their business property etc.
But if someone in the company passes away, we receive an email about the sad news, people talk amongst themselves, the people that want to contact the family do .. and that's it.
There have been a couple of deaths in my current company and it is much the same. It's not like we LIVE with these colleagues so now our lives will never be the same.
I would think - if anything they would provide grief counseling to the immediate family.
Face it .. people pass away from illness, accident or suicide ... it can't be that the company is gonna pay for grief counseling .. every time someone passes away. :(
I think you should seek out your own grief counseler if this colleague's death has had such an impact on you.
Hi air23time,
I am sorry to hear about your colleague.
if it was a school child who took his or her life, his or her classmates will get grief counselling (probably from victim support). I have never heard of that for adults in my 10 years here. If you need someone to talk to, you could go to your GP. Some huisarts centers also have counselling services.
