Quick action to cope with grief

By JULIE MIDDLETON

The first thing Mary Beth Robles did when she arrived at work at Colgate-Palmolive in Wellington on Wednesday was to get her human resources director to contact the company chaplain.

At 10 am, as the world reacted with horror to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, 180 of the Petone plant's 250 staff had their heads bowed in prayer in their canteen. It was an emotional time: tears flowed.

The chaplain stayed on site on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as part of a quickly implemented plan that allowed business to continue while allowing people to grieve.

Robles, the managing director, is American, and several of her staff are from New York.

The company's head office is also in New York, about 5 kilometres from what was the World Trade Center.

Everyone close to her private life is safe and no Colgate-Palmolive people in New York appear to have been affected.

But Robles felt it important to allow people to express their grief and shock.

The company prepared a statement, which was read out and later placed on noticeboards, telling staff that no Colgate-Palmolive people were affected, but encouraging staff to share their feelings with family, friends and colleagues.

For that first morning, staff were told they could handle their shock in whichever way best suited them: work, walk around, talk, hug, watch television coverage of the events on sets in the boardroom and in the company canteen.

For many, says Robles, the prayer session was enough; others might choose to make use of the company's confidential counselling, which forms part of its employee assistance programme.

"We probably short-circuited a day of completely nothing in terms of productivity," she says.

"In companies there is more realisation that people pull together in times of crisis and depend on one another.

"Sometimes it takes a crisis to remind people, to bring that out."

Other companies offered practical help to staff, recognising that physical distance from the terrorism did not necessarily temper reaction.

A BP staffer in the United States sent advice to its Wellington counterpart on how to explain such horror to children, and it was sent all around BP's staff in New Zealand.

Communications manager Jane Diver says top managers from BP in the US also sent e-mails globally, reassuring staff that colleagues were all accounted for and acknowledging people's shock.

In New York, companies will be counting the cost of concentrating talent in one place and figuring out how to help surviving staff to deal with the biggest workplace drama of their lifetimes.