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Bereaved employees in organisations: managers and co-workers responsibility

A thesis submitted in partial fulfiment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Community Psychology in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Zululand, 2009 / This study which sought to understand the psychological wellbeing of bereaved employees and the support they receive within their working environment used a convenient sample of 209 participants that included bereaved employees, managers, supervisors and human resource officers from various organisations in the province of Kwa Zulu-Natal. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized in this study.
Findings showed that:
(a) At times bereaved employees were not well supported when resuming work after
the funeral.
(b) Support offered before the funeral was sufficiently adequate in the majority of
Organisations but still warrants improvement.
(c) Some bereaved employees who developed complicated grief did not receive
adequate psychological intervention that they deserve.
(d) Mostly feelings of disturbances interfered with job performance.
(e) The current Family Responsibility leave was inadequate for those bereaved
employees whose culture demanded more days to cope with bereavement
rituals.
(f) The Employment Assistance Programmes that most organisations depend on
were largely ineffective in dealing with bereaved employees who need
counselling or psychotherapy.
The implication of the findings pointed to a need for organisations to have clear bereavement policies and support programmes for bereaved employees.

  1. http://hdl.handle.net/10530/76
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/76
Date January 2009
CreatorsShange, Lindiwe O.
ContributorsMakunga, N.V.
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatapplication/pdf

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