After Tina Lichten’s beloved husband passed away from brain cancer in August 2019, her boss continued to pay her full salary during an extended bereavement period.

“The darkest, worst thing that can ever happen was happening,” said Lichten, 49, vice president of sales at wholesaler the Anonymous Showroom in the Garment District. “To know this person unconditionally had my back no matter what — I don’t think there are words for her compassion, her empathy, for her human heart.”

Company president Chris Joannou offered ultimate flexibility during caregiving, too, with Lichten working from her husband’s bedside at night. Occasionally they both went into her office together. “I felt very fortunate that the option was there for him to come any day,” she said. “I didn’t have any time constraints. That was huge.”

After he died, Lichten worked at home, which made it easier if she “needed to cry or scream or take a walk,” she said.

Six weeks later, she gradually began to return to the office. “The support is, ‘When you get here, you get here.’ Nothing like, ‘You have to be back on this day.’ Some days, I still struggle to get out of bed. On those days, I work from home,” said Lichten. “Grief is always with me. You don’t get over it, you go through it — it walks with you side by side.”

Joannou doesn’t have a formal bereavement (or caregiving) policy for her employees.

“From the day Tina’s husband had his seizure [in 2018] and she had to run out, you go with it,” said Joannou. “When you’re a small company, you go with the flow. You’re a family. You just have to treat people like human beings, that’s all. Today, she’s at the graveyard. It’s OK. I know when she goes home, she’s going to open her laptop and start working.”

Joannou still doesn’t intend to create a bereavement policy.

“If somebody is already dedicated to their work when a life change happens that’s so traumatic, what are you going to do? Say, ‘You have three days to grieve, then you gotta come back?’ Seriously? That’s not enough.”

Sadly, many companies think that is sufficient, and some even require death certificates as proof. The standard policy for US employers is three paid days for employees’ grieving immediate family members and one paid for other relatives. A federal law doesn’t exist for bereavement leave — states and employers set policies. A proposed New York state Senate bill plans to expand sick leave policies to include bereavement.

Yet, “grief is not an express event,” said R. Benyamin Cirlin, LCSW and executive director at the Center for Loss & Renewal, a psychotherapy and consultation group on the Upper West Side. “We don’t expect people to become Ph.D.s in six months. We shouldn’t expect people to know how to live in a new world without a beloved person quickly.”

Cirlin suggested “enlightened bereavement leave” to include longer paid leave beyond nuclear families. “A grandparent, cousin … these can be very grievous losses. Working towards a more inclusive definition is important.” Innovative employee policies are also acknowledging relationships to the deceased regardless of blood or marriage. (Although there are no policies for pets — yet.)

Inclusivity also encompasses pregnancy loss, which is usually classified differently. Debbie Friedman, labor and employment attorney at international law firm Cozen O’Connor said miscarriages are generally considered serious health conditions, so an employee may be entitled to available paid sick leave. Some companies are developing policies for pregnancy loss.

“New York also has a law providing temporary disability leave benefits up to 26 weeks for eligible employees,” said Friedman. This applies to most employers regardless of their size but does not in and of itself provide job protection. Since New York is an at-will employment state, employers can terminate employment at any time for any non-discriminatory reason with or without cause or notice, so if your company denies time off and you take it anyway, “you may be jeopardizing your job,” Friedman said.

After experiencing any type of loss, talk to HR. “If there is no HR department, then go to your manager or someone else designated to deal with leave,” said Friedman.

Navigating grief and job insecurity simultaneously can be crushing. Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of Modern Loss, a global community offering content, connection and resources about the long arc of loss, and author of “The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience” (Running Press), lost her mother in a car accident in 2006. She only took two weeks off from her TV production job. “It was barely enough time,” she said. “It was overwhelming.”

Today, Soffer is emphatic about employers establishing reasonable bereavement leave policies. “Grief isn’t one size fits all,” she said. “We’re at the onset of a grief pandemic that’s going to outlast the pandemic. Employees need their mental health cared for. This is an opportunity to level up.”

Employers should also grasp complex, time-consuming life logistics surrounding grief, providing mental health support and counseling.

“The immediacy following death is about how you rejigger your life, access funds,” said Soffer. “It’s not just planning a funeral — it’s real-life survival.”

Soffer said work expectations should also adjust. “Maybe hours of productivity have shifted. In the aftermath of death, maybe we’re not evaluating [work] in the first three months. It takes a little bit off the pressure.”

When workers are recognized as human beings, connections to empathetic employers can deepen.“When people feel taken care of, they feel more willing to put in,” said Cirlin.

For Lichten, who’s worked for the Anonymous Showroom for the past 11 years, the compassion has led to a loyal bond.

“I will work there until I retire,” she said.