How policy implementation impacts employee suffering at work: An exploration of medical leaves of absence

Existing work offers rich theory on how work-life policies increase autonomy and balance and reduce work-life conflict. However, in moments when life is not merely imbalanced but severely upended, such as during times of severe illness or injury, this focus on balance and autonomy may be less relevant. We explore these moments of suffering by examining an often-overlooked work-life policy: medical leaves of absence. Through a qualitative grounded theory approach, we draw on the perspectives of 48 individuals (leave-takers and leave coordinators) to offer a comprehensive understanding of how medical leave policy implementation influences employee suffering at work. We first shed light on the elements of health-related suffering in the workplace and then introduce a healing-centered implementation approach. This dedicated examination of medical leave expands theoretical conversations by situating medical leave under a distinct category of policies, suffering-related policies. For these policies, suffering is the driver of policy use, and healing is a critical outcome for determining policy effectiveness. We also build a specific framework for concretely understanding the multidimensional nature of suffering in the workplace, which enables us to illuminate more precise implementation techniques that explicitly address each of the four elements of suffering in ways that existing constructs do not. Finally, we offer recommendations for how policy is written and implemented: offering paid medical leave, separating family and medical leave, eliminating the 1-year eligibility period, employing leave coordinators, cross-training employees to prepare for sudden outages, and offering additional suffering-related policies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).