When someone we care about is living with a life-limiting illness, experiencing significant health challenges, or approaching the end of life, we can begin grieving before a death occurs. This experience, known as anticipatory grief, can affect many aspects of a person's life, including their emotional wellbeing, relationships, and ability to focus at work.

Employees living with anticipatory grief are often navigating uncertainty, practical caring responsibilities, changing family dynamics, and the emotional impact of preparing for a significant loss. Despite its prevalence, anticipatory grief can be difficult to recognise and is not always well understood in workplace settings.

This session is designed to help organisations, managers, and colleagues better understand anticipatory grief and its impact on employees. Through practical discussion and reflection, participants will explore how anticipatory grief may present in the workplace and what support can make the greatest difference during these challenging periods.

Participants will gain confidence in having compassionate conversations, responding sensitively to employees' needs, and creating supportive environments where people feel able to talk openly about their experiences. The session also explores practical approaches to flexibility, communication, and workplace support, helping organisations build cultures that acknowledge and respond to the realities of grief before death.

This session can also be used to explore how to approach conversations with loved ones about their future and end-of-life wishes, helping individuals feel more prepared and supported during periods of uncertainty.

This session is for anyone who is anticipating grief in the near future, those who work in an environment where they experience loss, and managers supporting colleagues going through this. This can also extend to HR professionals, people managers, wellbeing leads and anyone responsible for supporting employees through bereavement and loss. 

This session is a valuable addition to your workplace wellbeing and inclusion programme and is particularly relevant for your workplace Grief Networks, Wellbeing Networks, Management Networks and any People Professional Networks. 

When should we hold this session?

Many organisations choose to schedule this session around key awareness campaigns to maximise engagement and visibility. Popular times include:

• Dying Matters Awareness Week (May) - A major UK campaign focused on conversations about death, dying, and bereavement.
• Baby Loss Awareness Week (October) - This campaign is centred around bereaved parents. 
• National Grief Awareness Week (December) - This campaign focuses on understanding grief, talking about loss, and creating compassionate communities.