What HR Leaders Get Wrong in the First 48 Hours After an Employee Death

Most leaders think the biggest risk after an employee death is saying the wrong thing.

It’s not.

The bigger risk is doing nothing while everyone waits for direction.

The first 48 hours after a death are full of good intentions and bad assumptions. Leaders care. HR cares. Managers care. And still, avoidable mistakes show up again and again because grief makes everyone cautious, emotional, and unsure of the rules.

Here are the most common ways organizations stumble in that window.

Mistake #1: Delaying information until it feels “complete.”

Leaders often wait to communicate because they do not have all the facts yet. Legal is reviewing. Details are unclear. Someone is worried about saying too much. So communication gets delayed in the name of precision.

Meanwhile, employees fill the gap with speculation and one of the most common ones is, “the company doens’t care.”

In the first 48 hours, frequency matters more than completeness. Saying “We don’t know everything yet, and here’s what we’re working on” is far more stabilizing than silence. Waiting for certainty increases anxiety, rumors, and distrust. People do not need perfection. They need to know leadership is paying attention.

Mistake #2: Treating grief like a short event instead of an ongoing reality.

Many leaders assume the hardest part is the first announcement and that things will naturally settle within a few days. So they acknowledge the loss once and mentally check the box.

Grief does not work that way.

It comes in waves. It hits people differently depending on their relationship to the person who died. Some employees struggle immediately. Others hold it together and fall apart weeks later. When leaders do not name this upfront, managers and teams misinterpret normal grief responses as disengagement or performance problems.

A simple reminder that reactions will vary and resurface over time prevents a lot of unnecessary damage. Do not make the mistake of thinking, “My team seems fine.” Grief is usually NOT visible.

Mistake #3: Leaving managers to “figure it out.”

Managers are expected to hold the emotional center of the team while also keeping work moving. In the first 48 hours, many are quietly panicking. What can I say? What should I avoid? How much flexibility is okay? Who will take over the work? What if someone breaks down in a meeting?

When HR does not step in quickly with clarity, managers often default to extremes. Some go silent. Others overshare. Both create stress.

Managers do not need scripts. They need alignment. Clear guidance on what is known, what to say, when to escalate concerns and when updated information will come. When HR provides this early, managers stabilize faster and make fewer reactive decisions.

Mistake #4: Confusing reassurance with avoidance.

Managers often want to reassure teams by moving back to “normal.” Let’s keep things moving. Let’s focus on the work.

The problem is that avoidance feels like minimization.

And the appearance of minimizing an employee’s death can cost a company millions of dollars. 

Employees are not looking for long emotional conversations. They are looking for acknowledgment that what happened matters. A short, honest acknowledgment does more to restore focus than pretending everything is fine.

You can hold compassion and productivity at the same time. Avoidance helps neither.

Mistake #5: Outsourcing care entirely to resources.

Offering EAP or grief counselors can be helpful, but it is never enough. When that is the only response, it sends a clear message - this is uncomfortable for us too, so we are handing it off.

Resources work best when they are part of a broader response that includes leadership presence, manager support, and ongoing communication. Otherwise, they feel transactional and short-lived.

Mistake #6: Underestimating how closely people are watching.

In the first 48 hours, employees are paying attention to small signals. Who speaks first? How often updates come? Whether leaders seem present or distant. What managers say when they do not know the answer.

Employees aren’t expecting perfection. But they are expecting humanness.  

And that observation period lasts longer than most HR or managers realize.

I built Workplace Grief because I watched organizations with good values get this moment wrong out of uncertainty. The first 48 hours are not about fixing grief. They are about preventing confusion, reducing unnecessary stress, and giving managers and teams enough clarity to function.

They are about being human. 

Grief at work IS predictable.

How you manage it and help a team through can be too.