You think it'll never happen to you....

HRLASS

We just had kind of a shock. An employee in our department was on vacation last Thursday and Friday. She was supposed to come back to work Monday. Her boss is on an extended vacation out of the country and her office is in a far corner of our floor. No one noticed until a few hours ago that she had not been in all week and had not called. We started calling her apartment - no answer. Called the apartment manager. Got a call from her sister about 30 minutes ago. They found her dead in her apartment - probably for 24-48hrs. Most of our department is in shock. We knew she had some health problems and we knew she lived alone with no near relatives. You hear about that kind of thing and we were just joking about it regarding setting up a new job abandonment policy - but no one expects it to actually happen.

LivindonSouth

"her office is in a far corner of our floor. No one noticed until a few hours ago that she had not been in all week and had not called."

My God! Is your department the size of a tree-dotted football field?

HRLASS

Yes, our department support staff feels terrible that no one noticed her absence. We have recently had a major reorganization and about half the department has been moved off the floor to both other floors and other properties in town.
Also, we have a tendency to be both lax and liberal in granting leave, and it is quite normal that during her boss's extended leave, she might have been told that extra days off were not a problem if she wanted to take them. She is very quiet, works one on one with her attorney only, and frequently comes in a little late. (I can't do past tense yet.)
Her death was announced in this morning's staff meeting (by the administrator - no comment from the dept. heads) with little fanfare and no reference to EAP assistance, which is unfortunately typical of our legal department. Serious need for HR training in this dept and very hard to get lawyers to consider it applicable.

System

I can almost understand how the employee's presence could be overlooked. If she doesn't work directly or regularly with anyone but her boss, perhaps people thought she was still on vacation. Eventually people would murmmer "shouldn't she be back from vacation by now?" Then the shock hits your workplace because no one would have imagined it. You may want someone from your EAP program to come in and let people talk in small clusters. They'll be talking among themselves trying to resolve it anyway. Don't ignore the 'feelings' of your workforce and expect production to continue as usual. They need to talk.

LivindonSouth

OK, pardon my levity. SMoll is right.

TN HR

I am sadenned to hear the news. My thoughts are with you. We recently had a similar scenario. While it din't affect as much of our workforce as yours, it was still traumatic for many.

One of our Maintenance Technicians at our Georgia plant went home for lunch to find his wife dead. Young family, too, mid 40's. Their 12 year old daughter actually came home from playing over at a neighbor's and found her dead. Initially we suspected suicide, however we later found out that she had been on some sort of extreme diet and her system shut down completely.

Good luck in dealing with this terrible loss.

Gene

HRinNH

Oh my...how sad. You must have a large workforce to not even miss her for 3 days. Definitely get your EAP involved. The company will do well to allow small groups to get together to talk this out. Sam's right, they're gonna talk amongst themselves anyway so why not hold organized chat sessions.

I'm gonna send a company-wide memo next time I'm out!

Cheryl C.

LivindonSouth

No; send the memo when you return, so you won't go undetected for four days.

Carolsmith

At times like this often management doesn't know what to do next. We had an employee that didn't show up for work and didn't call in. It was so unlike her since she had perfect attendance. Knowing this was out of character the supervisor sent a co-worker to her home (probably should not have done that) and he found her hanging in her garage. AT the time we were not participating in a EAP program, but I notified an EAP service and they immediately sent out a counselor. We offered any employee wishing to speak to the couselor the opportunity as well as any follow-up visits. Our employees were so impressed with management's quick response to their needs. Therefore, definitely bring in a counselor for the employees.

Whirlwind

Sadly and all too often, there are people who don't have a single living soul other than their employer who will care, check on them, or even notice when they are missing in action. Last year, we had an ee -- an older woman with severe diabetes and some mental health problems -- who was off work pending receipt of information from her physician as to whether she could safely perform her job duties with or without reasonable accommodation. When it was a couple of days past the deadline we had given her to get this medical info and we still hadn't seen or heard from her, her supervisor went to her apartment, got the manager to let her in, and they found her lying on the floor, dead. Neither of her grown children had checked on Mom despite her obvious frailty, but they certainly showed up to check on her death benefits. Similarly, several years ago my ex-husband went to check on a no-show employee and found him dead in his apartment. The employer -- a restaurant -- ended up making and paying for all the funeral arrangements. Again, it's sad and too common.

HRLASS

Last night they announced that an EAP counselor will be here on Monday for everyone to get together and talk about Sue. The department is lagging and having trouble working with constant conversations about sue in offices and in the hall. She had a brother in town and a daughter, location unknown, but was estranged from both. Her closest relative is a sister living in north Texas who called us when the EMTs got into the apt. and found her after we called. We knew Sue had no close friends or family in town as many of us on the floor had rotated taking her and picked her up from some doctor appts. and surgeries she had last year - from which we thought she had well recovered. (When she was out, she would call co-workers to chat.) The sister thanked us for taking the initiative to pursue checking on her, even if we were late.

gismo

I'm glad to hear your company is going with the EAP for the EE's. Last year, one of our EE's was killed in a car accident, (first EE death in the company) our management thought they could handle this without the help of an EAP (we don't have one but I had a member of our local hopspital ready to come in and speak with the EE's). Come to find out some time later, some EE's would have welcomed the help from a counselor!

Good Luck!

JM in ATL

I am so sorry to hear about this sudden and tragic loss.

I hope your department comes through this with the help of the EAP. That was a smart decision to make.

Best of luck.

JM