The Etiquette of Sympathy

Handling condolences in an appropriate manner is an essential life skill, and necessary if you want to be taken seriously in your profession.

It is good to have a system in place in your organization to communicate when there is a serious illness, death or other tragic event. This applies to co-workers, vendors and other business relationships.

There are several levels of acknowledgment in a situation of grief:

1. Sending a hand-written note shortly after you hear of the situation and address it to the individual you know.

2. Calling the person and offer to help, whether it is dropping off food, taking them to lunch or dinner to talk, offering to assist with work arrangements or childcare or picking up visitors at the airport.

3. Attending the viewing hours if the family has arranged this at a funeral home. It is always a polite gesture to drop by, whether you knew the deceased personally or not.

4. Attending the funeral. This is necessary for someone you knew well, or if you are close to the bereaved. If you attended the viewing hours and signed the guestbook, you do not need to sign the guestbook again.

5. Follow-up. It is always a nice gesture to mark your calendar for three or four weeks after the events to follow-up with the bereaved. A quick phone call, email or note asking how they are doing and offering any assistance if needed is a wonderful gesture.

Flowers can be sent either to the church, funeral home, graveside or the bereaved home. Contributions to an organization or charity, in memory of the deceased are always appropriate.

We have a policy in place at firstPRO that allows someone a specific number of paid days off for funerals. Additional days have to be taken in the form of sick or vacation days.

What is important overall, is to acknowledge the situation. Not only does it display good manners, but it is simply the right thing to do.