Quiet Quitting Is Old News. Meet Quiet Grieving at Work

Sometimes we start noticing what is going to by behaviors.  A delay in email replies. A lack of video during team meetings.  Cancelations of appointments.  Showing up just enough to check a box. 

The spark was dim.

I was consulting at a company where this was happening with a great employee.  At first, no one said anything. She still met her deadlines. She wasn’t complaining. She just wasn’t... fully there anymore.

Her name was Carla. And she wasn’t disengaged. She wasn’t lazy. She wasn’t quiet quitting.

She was quietly grieving.

Carla had lost her mother six months prior, but the world had moved on. The bereavement days in her company benefit package were long gone. The celebration of life gatherings ended.  The sympathy cards and flower deliveries had stopped.   The casseroles stopped arriving. But the grief? It hadn’t clocked out. It had simply gone underground.

In meetings, Carla smiled because it was easier than explaining. She kept her calendar full because stillness made space for sadness. She said, “I’m fine,” because HR wasn’t equipped to hear otherwise.

And so she performed. Until she couldn’t.

Because grief is not an event. It’s a process. And it doesn’t end when employees return to work.

Grief is something that all humans eventually experience.  And it has no timelines.  And people need to take that time – not just time off, but time to be with the emotions that come up. 

It’s not a matter of rushing to approve bereavement benefits.  It’s about taking the time to connect – not just about the projects that need to be done.  But about the human behind them. 

Those conversations can change everything.  When employees are supported through their human experience, they have a sense of belonging.  And showing up just gets a little easier.

The modern workplace has built policies for almost every milestone—maternity leave, onboarding, promotions, offboarding. But grief? It’s treated like an interruption. Something to be ‘managed’ rather than metabolized.

Yet unresolved grief is everywhere in today’s workforce. Loss of loved ones. Loss of health. Loss of safety. Loss of identity. And perhaps most subtly, loss of meaning.

We’ve been conditioned to expect clean lines around grief: three days, a funeral, and back to business. But the truth is, people carry grief like a second skin. It shapes how they engage, how they trust, how they create.

When organizations ignore that truth, they don’t just miss a human need—they miss a leadership opportunity.

Quiet grieving shows up as:

• Sudden disengagement from previously loved work

• Avoidance of team social activities

• Resistance to feedback that was once welcomed

• Decreased creativity

• Emotional flatness in otherwise expressive employees

It’s not a performance issue. It’s a pain issue.

Leaders who recognize this create cultures that are not only more compassionate—but more resilient.

Psychological safety doesn’t just mean being able to speak up about mistakes. It also means being able to say: “I’m not okay.”

And if a company wants to retain its top talent, it must learn to hold space for the silent sorrows that shape their people’s days.

Because grief doesn’t need a solution. It needs recognition.

And sometimes, that’s the most transformational leadership of all.

Here’s what I see too often: Employees grieving in silence. Managers unsure what to say. HR defaulting to policy instead of humanity. And an entire culture subtly reinforcing the message: Keep producing—even when you’re in pieces.

That isn’t sustainable.

Nor is it human.

If we want workplaces that thrive, we must acknowledge the real emotional terrain people are navigating. Not just burnout and stress—but grief in all its quiet, aching forms.

I’ve worked with leaders who assumed a struggling team member was underperforming—only to discover they were grieving the loss of a parent, a child, a partner, a house, a life plan, or a dream.

I've seen teams become stronger—not weaker—when a leader dared to say, “Take the time you need. We’ll figure the rest out.”

Grief is not a weakness. It’s a reflection of love. And when workplaces make room for it, people heal faster. Not because grief is rushed—but because it’s witnessed.

Here’s what I believe:

• A company that can hold grief is a company people trust.

• A manager who can sit in silence with someone who’s hurting is a manager worth following.

• And a culture that honors both the highs and lows of the human experience is the culture that retains its people—because it respects their whole selves.

Quiet grieving doesn’t need louder productivity. It needs deeper presence.

So let’s ask better questions:

• What unspoken losses are your employees carrying?

• What would it look like to normalize grief as part of the human condition?

• How can your leadership create space for healing, not just output?

You don’t need a new policy to start this. You just need to notice.

To listen.

To lead with heart.

Because behind every employee badge is a story. Sometimes that story includes heartbreak. And the best leaders—the ones who build unshakable cultures—are the ones who remember that.

Let’s evolve our workplaces. Let’s invite humanity back into the room. Let’s stop pretending grief ends at the funeral.

It doesn’t. But compassion can begin anywhere. Even here.