Today marks the start of Dying Matters Awareness Week 2023 – May 8-15.
Every year, Birmingham Hospice uses this campaign as an opportunity to encourage communities to get talking about death and dying in whatever way, shape or form works for them.
This year Dying Matters wants you to start these conversations at work.
We will be sharing stories, giving advice and encouraging more people to come together to talk about death, dying and grieving in the workplace.
By talking with those around you, you can help us make sure that workplaces are properly set up to support people who are ill, who are caring for those around them, or who have lost someone close to them.
Stigma around grieving, and a lack of understanding about what it means to be ill and what happens when you’re dying, mean that too many of us are struggling to cope when faced with life’s inevitable challenges, and the workplace is no exception.
57% of employees will have experienced a bereavement in the last five years (Hospice UK, 2022) and every day, more than 600 people quit work to look after older and disabled relatives (Carers UK, 2019).
And yet, fewer than one in five managers feel as comfortable as they could when supporting someone they manage with a bereavement.
We spend so much of our lives at work – and we shouldn’t have to hide our experiences of death and dying from our colleagues, our peers, or our bosses. If Dying Matters – then it matters at work too.
