Ep 77 | The Cost of Neglecting Grief at Work with Kate Mollison

Facing the loss of a loved one is a harrowing journey that doesn't pause at the office door, a truth Kate Mollison knows all too well. After her world was shaken by personal tragedy, she encountered the chill of an unsympathetic workplace. Our conversation with Kate uncovers the deep need for workplaces to weave compassion into their fabric, something she passionately advocates for through her initiative "On Tuesdays, We Wear Black." As she shares her story, we explore the stark reality of grief's toll on both employees and employers, revealing the staggering economic losses that result from inadequate support systems.

We shed light on the recent legislative changes in Connecticut that recognize the impact of grief and PTSD in workers' compensation, reinforcing the message that the time for change is now. Kate also notes how even in the absence of policy, there are a number of changes we as employers, employees, and members of society can make, such as the language we use, that take little effort but have a large impact.

As Kate shares a tender tribute to her late husband, we are gently reminded that talking about grief and death need not be shrouded in discomfort. From a simple pink tie to the broader gestures we make to honor our loved ones, this conversation invites us to embrace these topics with openness and sincerity. We show you how discussing the undiscussable can create spaces for healing and remembrance in every aspect of our lives.

Find Kate Mollison at:
On Tuesday's We Wear Black : https://www.otwwb.com/
LinkedIn : linkedin.com/in/kate-mollison-332259273
Don't forget to save the date, february 13th, to check out the premier of Kate's upcoming podcast on your favorite platforms - Happily Never After Turning the Page, after Spousal Loss

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Dana Dowdell - Boss Consulting - @bossconsultinghr - @hrfanatic

Transcript

Dana Dowdell: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by Boss Consulting HR and our downloadable products. We launched downloadable products in 2023 and I'm excited to share them with you through the Quirky HR podcast. If you head over to Boss Consulting HR and navigate to the downloadable section, we'll, of course, make sure that it's linked in the podcast description. There you can find resources for small business owners, hr departments of one, new business owners who are not quite sure where to go to get started, all for purchase. Our goal is to provide all the resources and tools for small business owners so that you can make sure that you are doing right by your employees and running your HR function appropriately. With that, check them out over on Boss Consulting HR and we'll get right into the show. Welcome back to Quirky HR. We are joined by Kate Mollison. She is a grief and bereavement specialist and the founder of On Tuesdays, we Wear Black, Kate. Welcome to Quirky HR.

Kate Mollison: 1:20

Thank you so much, Dana, for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for being here.

Dana Dowdell: 1:26

We're going to talk a lot about, I think, a subject that people just don't ever talk about before they're experiencing it. Before we do that, can you tell us a little bit about your experience and grief and loss and how that pushed you to create? On Tuesdays, we Wear Black.

Kate Mollison: 1:47

Thank you for asking that question. By the way, it really is the cornerstone of my business is the legacy of my loss I was widowed in 2020, not COVID related, I feel like I have to specify. It was medical negligence. It was sudden and devastating and completely turned my whole world upside down. I have two small kids, two adult disabled parents. I was working full time two days a week in Manhattan, the other six days a week basically in West Hartford as a luxury retail store manager. Just the whole experience kind of catapulted me into this world of unknown.

Kate Mollison: 2:31

After figuring out the nuances of selling a house I didn't own and burying a husband without an estate plan and planning a funeral and crowdsourcing his funeral we used GoFundMe for that. God bless the people who donated. It kind of left me going pardon my French. But what the fuck do I do now? I realized there was such an incredible lack of support and resources and guidance and education. Every time I looked for something, it was all about support groups or turning to religion or I needed more practical, tangible guidance and education. Since it didn't exist, I created it. So, three years after his death, here we are. I host a free educational blog and I have the website and I'm out there educating both businesses and individuals on the relationship between grief and bereavement.

Dana Dowdell: 3:29

What was your bereavement experience with your employer at the time?

Kate Mollison: 3:35

Horrific, horrific. I will choose to refrain from naming my employer because we never burn bridges. It's just bad business. But you know, connecticut State Law says that you get three days bereavement leave. They were kind enough to give me five. I took my five days bereavement leave. He didn't have a will, so I took a 60% hit to my income and then was trying to navigate paying for things and affording a house. That was ridiculous, and didn't know he had a life insurance policy, so I went back to work. He died two days before Thanksgiving, so it was the week of Christmas. Basically, I went back to work. I had to exhaust my PTO, so I went back to work with an empty PTO bank.

Kate Mollison: 4:20

Three days after I went back, my son got pneumonia and so I was out of work for a week, completely unpaid, already experiencing this financial insecurity and huge upheaval of my whole life. And it was just, I worked 75 hours a week and I wasn't functioning. There was no empathy. It was like, well, you had your leave, like check it at the door, and the employer had the audacity to say things like well, when my cat died, I found it helpful to throw myself into my work, and pet loss is significant. It's its own thing, but it was not the appropriate time or place to re-grief, as I like to call it, to take over someone's grief narrative and to just push me to work to the point where I had a mental breakdown. Didn't tell me that I had access to short-term disability. I'm doing my office days and doing that research on my lunch break like tick tick, tick on the computer. I go through that process and she became very angry with me because she said I did it behind her back, which I followed SOP. Trust me, I printed it. I'm an all about the books kind of girl and I ended up going on short-term disability for three months and while I was on short-term disability she was harassing me. It became a hostile work environment where she was reaching out to other store managers telling them to anticipate I'm not returning to expect to pick up my workload, coaching my staff to tell my regular customers that I wasn't coming back.

Kate Mollison: 5:47

I had a friend pop in and try to surprise visit me and she asked where I was and they're like oh, kate doesn't work here anymore. And so she texted me. She's like I went to visit you. I didn't know you quit your job. I'm like I didn't quit my job I'm supposed to go back in three weeks and emailed my boss and she's like well, your friend is lying. We would never say that. I'm like, my friend that I've known for 15 years is lying to me and you're my boss, you've been my boss for a year, you're not. I don't know like thought she was a nice person but it really just was a force hand. So I wrote, you know, a resignation letter to my regional manager where I attached every single text and email that I had gotten over.

Kate Mollison: 6:21

The you know 12 weeks of short-term disability was not approved by a doctor to go back and she basically demanded I come back. That when I returned, you know, I wrote the resignation letter and the regional manager was kind of like, well, sorry, I have to go, like there was no advocating for me. There was no. I took a store that was six months away from closing, making $600,000 a year, and I turned it into a $2.2 billion store in a year and a half. Wow, and I'm not my own horn, but you know, like I'm a retail girl by trade.

Kate Mollison: 6:58

I did the business metrics, I followed the KPIs, I followed the SOP and none of that hard work over 18 months was even taken into consideration. It was just like get over it and come back to work. And when I couldn't, they were like don't let the door hit you. So something I advocate for is employers really understanding grief and their bereavement leave benefits from a grief lens and people understanding the laws around bereavement leave, even protecting themselves and doing the legwork. You know, like what happens if your grandmother dies you get one day bereavement leave. Like that's not cool. Like if your grandmother raised you as like your parent, you get one day bereavement leave. It doesn't matter. So it's just really encouraging employers to start looking at their benefit packages from a more humanistic, holistic perspective.

Dana Dowdell: 7:49

And like a whole yeah, a whole self. When you brought up pet loss, I think a lot about also pregnant employees who experience this? Yeah, you know just there's all.

Kate Mollison: 8:05

All of us are bereavement leave. They only take their maternity leave and that's only if they opt to carry to term. So if they end up having like an early term DNC, it's PTO, it's sick time in PTO. You know, if your family dog passes away and you were like, oh my God, there's a death in the family, I have to go. Let me take some personal time, let me take my bereavement leave. They look at you like you've got three heads, like, oh, it's just a dog. Like, think about your connection to your childhood pet, whether it was a dog, a cat, a gecko, a rabbit, I don't care, like it could be. You know a stick that you picked up in the yard. I don't mean to be blib, but if that's your sole companion in that animal form and you're told that you can't grieve them and you can't mourn them and you have to just focus at work, we tend to shove grief under the rug in the work setting.

Dana Dowdell: 8:54

Thinking about your own experience and what you do now and the research that supports supporting grief experiences in employees. What do you wish your employer did differently when you were in your experience? So many things.

Kate Mollison: 9:13

So many things you know like. I don't mean to be a statistic factory, but just let me blow your mind for a second. The CDC reported in 2023 that $225.8 billion were reported in lost revenues as a result of quote mishandled grief resources. So that's either lack of bereavement, leave lost productivity in employees, mismanage, time off employees, you know, quitting retention metrics. Think about that from like a global scale. That money is a ridiculous amount of money and had we just taken the estimated $220,000 annually to put grief supports in place, that number would have been mitigated. You know, 40% over.

Kate Mollison: 9:57

Again, I'm a retail girl, so the metrics are gonna speak for themselves. You gotta chase those KPIs. I hate to say it, but it really just blows my mind that we have to educate businesses through that business metric perspective. It's not worth their time, their money, their energy unless they can see the profit margin. And how, especially post COVID, are we as a human race not thinking more empathetically, more connected? We lost so much during COVID our connections, our capacity for human interactions. I think about the kids who lost all that time at school and what type of adults they're gonna be because of those few short years that they did not have that social interaction and engagement. And now we're still this type of way in our employment. We have to start, you know, quote, acting our wage, and then that scene is, you know, acting our wage. And then we're just reaching out and young kids who are in the workforce or are seen as entitled, well, no, they're really just like understanding the empathetic filter that should be unilaterally applied to a business philosophy I think about.

Dana Dowdell: 11:03

You know we're talking beforehand and we both have experienced major loss and I truly believe that a lot of people don't have to experience, you know, significant, deep grief in their lifetime. Not that one grief is better or more significant or more you know legitimate than another, but you know. So what do we need to know and understand about grief? Just as like an experience as an emotion.

Kate Mollison: 11:33

Well, first of all, there's two things I say are unavoidable death and taxes, and we don't talk about either one nearly enough. It is a fact we are all going to die. It is a fact. We are all going to experience loss. Our parents are going to die. Our children are going to die hopefully not before us. Our pets are going to die. They live less than us.

Kate Mollison: 11:57

So why is it that we are so afraid to talk about death? To embrace that natural occurrence, you really need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because it's an inevitable, and the best thing that you can do is to just understand that no two grief experiences are the same. Much like you said, no one is better than the other. But even if they're, you know, the same. Like I lost my husband, someone else lost their husband. Those two grief experiences, even if the situation was replicated exactly how we handle an experienced grief, is never the same. Grief is a biological and physical reaction. Your brain chemistry changes, your neuro pathway changes, your memory capacity changes, your white blood cells count changes, like you have so much going on in your body and we just tend to dismiss it like we do with most quote mental illnesses or disorders. So people really just need to understand. It's unique, it's nuanced, it never ends. Morning ends, bereavement ends. But grief, it's a part of you, you're changed and you move forward with it.

Dana Dowdell: 13:06

I think we also think about grief as kind of like a singular event. But I remember when I lost my sister and I was exploring, taking an FMLA leave because my employer did not, I think same thing, you know, two days, three days or something like that, like you don't plan the funeral until day four or five anyway, so it's after at least Right. So and and I went up taking like a personal leave of absence but so much of my need to be out of work was around, battling kind of like you know, these just strong feelings of depression and loss and anxiety, and you know so it's all very much linked, yeah.

Kate Mollison: 13:48

Right. So the the grief recovery Institute actually did a really interesting study where they talked about social perception in the workforce and how that actually perpetuates retention. So it was like 25% of all US employees experience a lack in their work reputation because their lack of productivity, or their depression, or their unreliability because they're calling out or needing time off, and then it just continues to perpetuate this cycle of like lack of understanding, lack of productivity, lack of self worth and depression. Like then you experience depression and then that perpetuates your capacity for social interaction and then you have grief around that and it just keeps going in this terrible little oodle loop.

Kate Mollison: 14:32

You know there's a huge disenfranchisement that happens in the workplace after a grief experience and I think that people often misconstrue grief to be exclusive to death and I think a lot of my clients and businesses to understand that grief can be fertility struggles. Grief can be, you know, your parents selling your childhood home. It could be financial crisis, it could be. You know I hate to be cavalier, but you put a hole in your favorite sweater and obviously you're not taking bereavement leave for that. But if that's your only experience with loss, it's still valid and there's still emotions that happen and there still should be employer supports and resources other than here's a phone number. Sit on hold and then get back to work Like use your lunch break that's supposed to be, you know, unpaid time or paid time off and be well, no use that time to go down the rabbit hole of 800 numbers, Not helpful.

Dana Dowdell: 15:26

Yeah, we've had. We've had a couple of discussions with EAP providers on this podcast, and I'm a big fan of EAP. I remember when my sister had gotten placed on hospice and I called them and they were fantastic and they were very supportive, very supportive and helpful. But I think where we go wrong there is we expect the employee to take the leap to contact them when they're already experiencing so so biologically they don't have the capacity.

Kate Mollison: 15:58

Again, it goes back to those like neuro pathway changes. The your hypothalamus, the brain, is literally flooded with the cortisol, the brain chemical, the stress hormone. It can cause heart palpitations, like increased illness, like you don't have the capacity to think straight, productively, accurately, and then you're expected to just like do a job. And I think about the people who, like operate heavy machinery. It's like doing drugs and then going to work. You have so much chemical in your brain and you're still expected to perform, and then you're held to the same like performance standards as you were if you weren't, you know, otherwise, inebriated per se, let's, for lack of a better phrase. It's wild to me how we don't have a better system in place with something that's so avoidable. There's so many great resources out there for maternity leave and new parents and even for, you know, parent to leave, for dads or adoptive parents. Being a parent can be a choice. Experiencing death is not. Why are we so quick to offer, you know, exclusive maternity leave packages when you have this nine months to prepare, maybe longer, and death can happen at literal any moment and you're left to your own accord? It's always wild to me. The legislation's around it, the community supports around it, and EIP does a good job. They mean well, but they're also bound by their own you know systems and resources. So how do we, as employers, set our employees up for success? By offering that morale, that retention, that company culture of just holistic understanding for the human condition? And then taking that a step further, like how do we do work with those who are grieving, our clients, our customers, that community populace?

Kate Mollison: 17:41

Recently I was in a real estate agent office and realtors who had just graduated they're like licensing and I was talking to them about selling homes that are subject to probate. You know, susie Q's been married to her husband for 50 years and he died suddenly and it's subject to probate, so we have to sell the house because she needs to liquidate assets. She's lived in this home with him for 40 years, but you have to sell the house in 30 days. How do you go into her home and tell her to empty out the closet and take all the family portraits off the wall four days after his death? That's 40 years and you've got to kind of just do your job because you're on a timeline, but you have to do it in a way that's compassionate and gentle, and yeah, it's unavoidable, and yeah, that's going to suck for her and it's not your job per se to hold her hand but how do you just have a little bit of empathy for what she's going through instead of treating her like another number?

Dana Dowdell: 18:33

Things like that, I think about, Is it safe to say, in the workplace. It's that kind of culture component right, Making sure that the culture is supportive. But then policy as well. What do your policies support? Because I think this topic of equity and fairness and consistency is really. It will always come up and the policy is what helps employers ensure those things right, Sure. So how do we?

Kate Mollison: 19:01

start Number one grief is protected under ADA. So if you're not offering grief resources, supports in education, then you're not ADA compliant and that's national level compliance and I think that's not known. How is that not known and how are we not doing education and supports and services for ADA compliance? Retail stores have to measure the distance between apparel fixtures to make sure their wheelchair accessible.

Kate Mollison: 19:28

We don't have bereavement education and grief support resources readily available other than the 1-800 number for EAP, and then EAP's job is to kind of like project manage that People don't have the capacity to sit on hold for two hours if EAP is flooded. People don't know the to-do steps on how to apply for short-term leave of absence or those types of things. So it really just comes down to educating themselves as business owners to what their local laws are, to really taking things that HR lens and HR meaning human resources or human relations. How are we relating to our employees at a human level and creating morale, boosting retention, boosting cultures that really foster an environment where people want to come to work for you because they know when something happens they're going to be supported?

Dana Dowdell: 20:26

What have you seen in terms of like best practice, like in your work, working with probably a lot of different businesses and a lot of individuals who are experiencing grief while working, you know, have any companies just done a really fantastic job at supporting grief?

Kate Mollison: 20:43

I will say H&M, as a employer, does a really great job. They do monthly professional development days where everyone gets paid. They shut the store for a day, they provide a paid lunch for everyone. So it's already during the day when people are working and they'll do it in like a rotation cycle, so a morning class, an afternoon class and an evening class and they have an HR rep from district and an EAP rep come in and it's kind of just like a talk. We have to sit there, read the handout, listen to them.

Kate Mollison: 21:13

But it's at least a start where you're getting a face to a name and it's not just a cold call. You're getting access to, like here's local, you know support groups, and it was for various things, I think, when they talked about like addiction services, when they talked about like parenting support groups. They also do outreach programs through WhatsApp so you can sign up and go onto WhatsApp and they have text groups for various things. So you're talking with other people in the business, in the company, worldwide, experiencing the same issue that you're experiencing, whether it's parenting struggles or women empowerment or gender disparities. Or there was a grief and bereavement, one which was so incredible to be a part of that dialogue when I worked for the brand there.

Kate Mollison: 21:57

There are some local companies that do a really beautiful job, so Daybreak Coffee in Glastonbury. They're very supportive to their staff. They treat everyone like family. You know it's no questions asked If you tell them you need time. Beyond that, it's just, we understand and we take it at face value. And the honor system. So obviously bigger scale companies have a little bit of a sticky situation with the honor system because one bad apple will ruin it for everyone inevitably, and that's when we get stuck in that slippery slope of these. You know rules and you know parameters and bureaucracies within businesses because we try to mitigate all of those potentials for abuse of these benefits. But I think we have to like streamline that a little bit and get back to a place where we're entrusting people to just be people and then when the bad, you know, make themselves present, we don't punish everybody, we hold them accountable and that's what SOP is for. So I think it's just understanding that there are ways of doing it without breaking that profit margin and completely reinventing the wheel.

Dana Dowdell: 23:04

We are big fans at Boston Salting, of saying you know, write your policies for the 99% of your workforce, of the 99% of your team that are amazing and fantastic, and will, you know, follow the rules and will not overuse. And you know, the 1% will always be the 1%.

Kate Mollison: 23:22

And as a new business owner, I'm my only employee. So when I talk to myself I say I'm having a staff meeting. But as a new business owner and as a former retail manager, my management style was all through an HR lens. I took every experience I had as an employee that I hated and I did the opposite. So I created, you know, set schedules where I could and I created set days off where I could, and I did the schedule six weeks in advance as I could, and I was a one woman show in retail and I'm a one woman show now. So we as business owners have to get a little bit more involved and stop letting policy run the show for us. Get engaged, get to know your people, get to know outreach, retention the hiring process is really where it starts and you avoid those one percenters. Obviously that's inevitable. But if you get to know your people on a personal level when they do have that experience, it's so much easier for you to relate to them in that human moment.

Dana Dowdell: 24:23

So I have an ick. I think this weird ick that when people say I'm sorry for your loss, it just it icks me really intensely. And so, in my HR capacity, anytime that I am sending flowers or making a donation on behalf of an employee's left, one that has passed, I have just this ick around like you know what I write in the card, can you speak to? You know what HR can do in that sense in terms of acknowledging you know that someone is experiencing some grief and supporting them, maybe in a smaller way, not just policy wise.

Kate Mollison: 25:04

Yeah. So I think it's that personal touch. You know, calling them, you know, a couple days after, and they may not have the capacity to answer your phone call, but leaving them a personalized voice message. You know, like, for example, if I was the HR rep, I'd be like hey, Dana, I'm just reaching out. I want you to know there's no obligation to return my phone call, but I wanted to check in and let you know that I'm here with you during this difficult time. I have some resources if you'd like them. If not, that's okay too. And when you're ready to come back to work, give me a call and we will figure it out together.

Kate Mollison: 25:35

It's about that partnership, that collaboration. It's an open door policy, but really not just saying it. You know, instead of saying I'm so sorry, can you say you know there are no words, or you know this is a difficult time, but I'm here with you, I'm here to support you, and then actually offering supports, what you can do within your legal capacities, things. You know. I hate that too, that I'm so sorry, because it becomes a platitude. It's just a pat on the head. You know, like my deepest condolences, it's like no empty. I would much rather someone say to me that there's nothing I can say to ease your pain. But I'm here with you, because saying I'm here for you again is empty, but I'm here with you creates that break in that feeling of isolation that grief so intrinsically creates.

Dana Dowdell: 26:28

I was just working on our compliance update and January 1 in Connecticut they expanded workers compensation coverage for PTSD related injuries for all employees. That used to be for first responders.

Kate Mollison: 26:43

Is that?

Dana Dowdell: 26:43

is that a component of this as well, in terms of grief events, or grief events at work that spark grief losing an employee, you know if you work in health care these types of things that we should also be considering.

Kate Mollison: 27:00

Oh, absolutely. Again, grief is not exclusive to, you know, a death or whatever. But if there's, you know, I think about the people who worked with my husband when he passed away. He was a state employee for 30 years. Like that office did a grief support group because he, you know in that branch of where he worked, because he was there for 30 years, like there's a significant loss not just of the workload distribution but of that like presence and that person. And then, you know, actually people reach out to me after someone took over his cubicle a year later and they were like that was hard. I couldn't walk by his cubicle for like two weeks and I was like I get it, but it's first responders are really underappreciated.

Kate Mollison: 27:42

Teachers think about all the like school shootings and all of those things. We're here to support the families and we support when you know, the teacher perishes, unfortunately. But how are we going into the schools afterwards and doing grief work with not just the students but the staff, and not that, you know, preparatory, like you know the bomb drill kind of thing, but how are we kind of really setting people up to have the tools and the, the trauma response that's appropriate? You know, as a certified playmaker, one of the things I focus on is helping people find joy through play, and play doesn't necessarily have to mean like sitting on the floor and playing with trucks, but something that just brings you joy. And with some of my adult clients I'll get the parachute out and we'll go stand in the field and I'll make them run through it and they think it's stupid, but at the end of it they're like laughing and they're remembering what it's like to be a kid and they're just feeling that pure joy. So how do we help people reconnect with the joy, to move through the grief and keep moving forward, versus get stuck in it and ruminate?

Kate Mollison: 28:46

We're not doing enough. There's not enough conversation about it. There's not enough practical, tangible work around it. There was recently a fire in Sommers where four small children perished and there's so many community efforts for the family. They're dropping off clothes or doing food donations. Has anyone reached out to those first responders? Has anyone shown up to that fire department with, you know, a coffee carafe and said, hey, we're here, we see you. That must have been incredibly difficult on those workers and there's grief in that. How are we supporting them, even when they don't die? You know, emergency workers, trauma nurses. How are we supporting those people on an intrinsic systemic level?

Dana Dowdell: 29:31

Workplace policy, workplace culture aside, you know, I think I think we shy away from showing big emotions at work and if we kind of take the workplace out of it and the things that are outside of our control, how can we, just as human beings, show up a bit more authentically, while being professional around grief?

Kate Mollison: 29:54

Loss is so disruptive because our social framework is just really based on interactional connection and grief creates isolation. As it is, there's a loss of identity, there's the biological changes, there's the lack of understanding from the people who aren't going through it to know what it's like. So just being the person, instead of saying call me when you need something, I often say to my clients dealing with people who are grieving, send them a text and say hey, I'm going to the grocery store, send me your list, I'll pick up a few things and drop them on your doorstep no obligation to answer your door. Or like I had small kids and one of the things my grief captain, as I like to call her, did. But she said I'm gonna pick the kids up from school today so you can sleep or do whatever you need, and I'm gonna take them to the science center. Is that okay? And she just did. It Showed up one night with, like pizza for the kids and my favorite salad and we just sat there. She showed up with moving boxes when it was time, just showed up. I didn't ever have to ask her. She just kind of looked at things and saw where the things that were going to need to be done were.

Kate Mollison: 30:59

So it's. Open your eyes, look at the people in your circles, and we're so encouraged to separate that home sphere and that work sphere. You know you check your stuff at the door and that's how you're professional. But asking people and really meaning it, like, how are things going for you? Is there something I can take off your plate? Redistribute the workload, you know. Offer someone to go home early if it's slow. Yeah, payroll is a thing, but, like, if it's not really necessary for them to stand there and be a mess internally, let them go home. But give them the choice Because so much is already happening to them. Don't dismiss them, don't send them away, because that furthers the isolation and we just were continually accidentally compounding the risk of depression and anxiety and maladaptive behaviors.

Kate Mollison: 31:45

We're quick to offer a drink. You know like, oh, I bet you need a drink. You know it's 26% of all people experiencing loss become addicted to drugs and alcohol in the first five years, and I'm talking like AA level addicted. It is a mental health epidemic that we aren't even realizing is right at our doorstep. Talking about grief is saving lives. 50% of all widows are under the age of 60. Oh my gosh, it's enough people annually to fill Manhattan twice. That number, when you think about it, is astronomical. And that's just widows, that's just women losing their husband. That's not men losing wives, that's not losing parents, that's not losing children, that's not losing sisters, brothers, grandparents. Four million people are dealing with grief and loss annually and that's just like such a small blip of a number, because that's all they can capture.

Kate Mollison: 32:43

That's incredible to think about it in that sense 25% of the workforce reports feeling extreme sadness due to grief or loss. So if you're employing, you know if you only have four employees, that's one quarter of your workforce that's like. That's a huge detriment to your productivity. It is to your benefit to think about grief and loss from a human to human connection, but from a systemic benefit. We have to just take better care of each other. You know, human to human. Stop asking how are you and start asking how are you right now?

Dana Dowdell: 33:21

We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do, so much work.

Kate Mollison: 33:25

You have a podcast, right, I do.

Dana Dowdell: 33:28

Tell us a little bit about that.

Kate Mollison: 33:30

So it is coming out debuting February 13th, which is also a Tuesday, and I like to do a lot of my things on Tuesdays, inherently the name of the business, it's kind of how it goes, but so it is called Happily Never After Turning the Page, after Spousal Loss. So it is a real deep dive into the widowhood experience. I have a co-host who was a widower, so he lost his wife. So we're looking at the gender disparities and the different viewpoints of the widowhood experience from both sides of the coin and really helping people understand what that's like and shedding some light on the experience.

Dana Dowdell: 34:07

It sounds like it'll be a great resource for friends, family, loved ones, employers, managers to use with their loved ones who are experiencing grief.

Kate Mollison: 34:18

Absolutely hope so, and that will be available where all podcasts are streaming so Apple Music, amazon Music, spotify and the like. So we're very excited for that. It's a big thing that's happening for me, so thank you for asking about it.

Dana Dowdell: 34:31

Where can listeners connect with you to learn more about what you do and use your consulting services?

Kate Mollison: 34:39

Yeah, so, like I said, I do host the free educational blog because I don't believe in gatekeeping as long as providing. As well as providing, I should say that consulting and advisory service. You can go to my website, www. otwwb. com, on TuesdaysWeWeareBlack. com and I can be reached immediately on my socials and texting. Availability and appointment scheduling is all right there on the website. So thank you so much. I love that Love to share with you the origin of the name of my business.

Dana Dowdell: 35:10

If I have to. Oh, yes, do it, go for it Moment.

Kate Mollison: 35:13

So my late husband mind you, he was six, three and 380 pounds Big linebacker looking guy that was a huge teddy bear Loved Broadway musicals, loved them, obsessed. We would go every year for his birthday and his favorite just happened to be Mean Girls, which is now making its film musical debut. So he loved that movie so much and the story that it told so much that he walked around quoting it and even would wear a pink tie to work on Wednesdays. Going on Wednesdays, we wear pink and it was so funny to watch him do this. Craig unfortunately passed away on a Tuesday. So although we wear pink on Wednesdays, on Tuesdays we wear black.

Dana Dowdell: 35:56

It's kind of a beautiful connection to him.

Kate Mollison: 36:01

Gives me the opportunity to tell a story about him every time I talk about my business, because most of the time people go such a unique name how did you get that? And I go. Well, let me tell you about my dead husband.

Dana Dowdell: 36:12

Let me make you feel uncomfortable by talking about grief and death.

Kate Mollison: 36:16

It's kind of my niche, talking about death doesn't have to kill you. It really doesn't. It doesn't have to feel like a death sentence or in all the puns, but it is a paramount conversation that we all need to get real comfortable with because it's unavoidable.

Dana Dowdell: 36:34

Absolutely, kate, thank you so much for joining us on Quirky HR. Thank you for having me. This was fantastic and, of course, we'll make sure that everything that Kate has referenced are in the show notes or her website, her LinkedIn, her social, and then, when the podcast goes live, share it with me and I'll share it to our listenership as well. So again, thank you, kate so much!