On rainy Tuesday afternoon, my 31-year-old wife died after battling stage 4 lung cancer, for the past 4 and a half years. In her last days, the treatments weren't working, and the pain got worse by the minute. It was so painful watching someone you love so much having to endure that kind of suffering, and I was powerless to help in any way. I sat on a chair with my hands on my head, tears running down my face, trying to be strong for my two young children, thinking about a line or a sentence that could explain the death of their mother.
The whole experience was so emotionally draining, I often wonder why; why is this happening to my wife and by extension my family. But despite the challenges, my CEO and my staff were very supportive. They took up my responsibilities, and this allowed me to deal with my wife illness full time. If I didn't have that support from my team and my CEO, God knows how I was going to make it.
One of the hallmark traits of a great company and a transformational leader is their ability to connect with their employees professionally and personally. They always reinforced the collective responsibility and go out of their way to ensure their team has the necessary support when needed. Transformational companies are often the ones prepared to challenge the status quo for example, many companies have changed their policies with the intention to give their employees more time to deal with personal issues affecting their lives.
Facebook, along with several other companies have extended their bereavement policy, doubling their paid death leave and offering up to 20 paid days off for employees who have lost an immediate family member, and those mourning the passing of an extended family member will be given 10 days of paid leave.
On top of that, Facebook has a three-day “paid family sick time” policy that covers short-term illness like staying home to care for your child who has the flu and this is in addition to Facebook employees’ 21 annual days of paid time off, plus unlimited sick time.
Deloitte and the Vanguard Group, for example, both started giving workers paid time off to care for sick relatives. Additionally, companies like Twitter, Cisco, and others offer unlimited vacation days to employees, which could, in those unfortunate circumstances, be used to grieve or care for a sick family member.
Many people have grown accustomed and accept an environment that is not supportive of their needs especially in a time of unforeseen circumstances, and they believe all companies are the same. They have been brainwashed to think that work is this prison sentence waiting for bail every day at 4 or 5 o'clock when their a thousand of companies who put their employees first and really look out for their staff and their families.
But this is the beauty of transformational leadership and transformational companies; they are not prepared to settle for “what is,” they inspire their people to believe and model the behavior they expect at their company.
You don’t have to accept an environment void of employee support. I will always remember the famous words of Sir Richard Branson:
"I truly believe that if you take care of your employees, they will take care of the business"
When Ben wife died he got overwhelming support form his company, in this type of environment employee turnover will be practically zero, because the leaders who genuinely care about their employee have the most loyal employees in the world, and they will go hell and back for their leader.