Inform callers of employee's death?

Caroliso · September 2004

I've recently experienced two different ways of handling informing callers of an employee's death, and was interested in knowing how others handled this.

The first happened in my own company. I received a call on a Monday that an employee had died the previous Friday from a sudden fatal fall. Her adult daughter gave me the news, and during that call asked me to inform her co-workers, and to send an e-mail to people in her e-mail address book to reach people she might not know about. There was only one call that came in for her that week and the switchboard routed it to me (HR Director). I informed the person of her passing. We have no policy on this (not the sort of thing you even think about until it happens) although generally we do not give out information about employees, except for verification of present or former employment, without out their consent.

Recently a co-worker was trying to track down someone who was due to attend a conference here (we'd made his air reservations and everything) and she just could not track him down. No response to e-mails. She called his current employer and reception said he was no longer with the company, and HR had no forwarding info for him. She couldn't find him listed in his home town, and was racking her brain trying to think of how she could contact him. She finally learned from an obituary she found by doing an internet search, that he'd passed away in early August.

I found myself wondering why an employer would not tell a caller that the employee hadn't just left their employ (let's assume they were informed), but he was dead. Can anyone speak to this, or share your own approach if you've had occasion to think what you would do or, heaven forbid, have been in this situation?

Thanks.

System · September 2004

We've had three employees who died while still employeed. You can't really make a policy for such an event. You can only 'feel out' the caller and respond with sensitivity. Most calls were forwarded to me since other employees were uncomfortable to reply anyway. You should 'fish out' the relationship of the caller to the deceased person. If it's a business contact (as it more-than-likely will be) you can give the name of the new contact. Don't elaborate unless you know it's a contact that knew the employee very well. I have several that would certainly be told if I died. Others are very casual and would simply be forwarded to someone else. It's publicized in the paper. It's not a big secret. Don't provide much more information than the obituary or the family does.

Caroliso · September 2004

What you say makes perfect sense and is in fact what I did, now that I think about it. I was having trouble imagining why you wouldn't just say so the EE has passed away up front. But now that you mention it, if the person is calling because they are trying to find out why an invoice wasn't paid, for example, no need to get sidetracked on the personal story when what would suffice was a "so-and-so is no longer with us, can someone else help?"

I know my employee who called the deceased's employer probed more because she really needed that individual and not because of his current employer, and she was stopped cold at reception based on HR's instructions that he was gone and they had no forwarding information. But I guess I'll just chalk it up to another organization's way of handling this for whatever reason. I prefer our approach.

DeidreFR5 · September 2004

What we have done is state that Ms X passed away, Ms Y is handingly their calls at this time, may we transfer you to Ms Y. If there are any questions concerning the death, we state only what we read in the paper.

Camlan · September 2004

We just had to deal with this when our receptionist was killed in a car accident while on vacation. Our company uses the services of about 250 freelance translators, who spoke to her every time they called and who had to take invoicing problems to her. Many of them were asking when she would be back, and the co-workers who were drafted to cover the phones until we could hire someone were having difficulty explaining--it's a small company and she had worked here 10 years. But clearly something had to be done, as many of our translators had a relationship with her, even if only over the phone.

So I got drafted to write a small piece for the quarterly newsletter--not the easiest thing I have ever written. The response was quite overwhelming--people actually sent flowers and condolence cards.

For most of our other clients, it really didn't matter. None of them have asked where she went. If they did, I think we would just say she died suddenly and then move on.

HRanna · September 2004

Of course, people do receive personal calls at work. Depending on the timing, you do not want to be the person telling someone their closest friend has passed away. I'd simply not tell anyone I didn't have to tell (and I'd limit that to co-workers).

Inform callers of employee's death?

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