We are a national organization with multiple branches in every state. I don’t intend to copy my entire organization’s policy here, I’m afraid.
I also want to say this. When my mom died, I wasn’t close to her. However, she is still my MOM. I got a call on Thursday saying she was sick as anything. I was supposed to work that Sunday at the biggest event of the year. I also had to work Saturday morning. I was going to work Saturday, drive down, and then drive back the same night.
My boss & coworkers discussed it without telling me and then told me to not to bother attending the event on Sunday. They said to do my work Saturday, and then just go. They had both lost their moms and they understood.
I have never ceased being grateful for that. I’ve never forgotten their kindness. We have a tiny staff here locally and they had a hard time doing without me, but they never complained. I also took the whole following week off - cremation was on Tuesday.
If they had been stingy in the time, if they had said things like “Well, you weren’t really close to her, so you don’t get any time,” etc., I would have been furious and I would have remembered it.
My father-in-law recently passed away, under unusual circumstances, and I had to use my (5) bereavement days non-consecutively, and up to a month after his death. My employer made no issue whatsoever over the timing of the days, even when I had to make last-minute changes. They were very understanding and flexible, which is exactly the appropriate attitude when it comes to this situation.
One other anecdote: A good friend of mine, after his mother passed away, had used 4 of his 5 (there’s that number again) bereavement days, and then had the opportunity to attend a Cubs game with his brothers the day after the funeral. Everybody felt this was a great idea, to allow the brothers to relax and enjoy some family togetherness after their loss. My friend felt guilty about taking this “extra” day and had to be talked into it. Everybody else realized that it’s all part of the bereavement process and he was entitled to the day. You may consider this “taking advantage” but I don’t agree. Neither did his boss, actually, who had no problem with it.
In these situations, you should err on the side of compassion.
My employer gave me three days for each parent but the grapevine is zero days for mother or father in laws. That sucks balls. Cant be with your spouse during their needy time. Lovely people.
The US Federal Government doesn’t give any time unless someone is killed or dies because of wounds in a combat zone. We have to use sick leave.
As for the OP I can see why they asked, people can be really bitchy if they didn’t get something that someone else got. I would say give them the days and the OPM site says
Mine is similar to minnies. Big international fortune 100 type company.
And I got back today from a week and a day of leave, a day PTO when the turn for the worse came, and a week of bereavement, and the first thing my boss said was “if you need more time…”.
Get rid of the employees who are likely to abuse policy before the issue even arises, with employees you want to keep, be flexible with the policy. My husband (we lost his brother a week ago Sunday) has been out three weeks already and is still out this week…some under FMLA some under bereavement, some under “yeah, just take some time.”.
The medical center with several thousand employees that I work at specifically states in their policies that the paid bereavement days off (3 for spouse, same-sex domestic partner, parent, child, or sibling; 1 for parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild) must be taken between/including the date of death and date of burial. So extra time with the family outside those dates would fall into your general paid days off pool. (There is also a clause that proof of death, relationship, and/or attendance may be required, I assume for those problematic employees who apparently have a family that is both huge and star-crossed.)
In addition to our written policy, supervisors can also give more time if necessary. We are required to use sick or vacation time to do so, but we can request more time if needed. We had an employee who lost her young son and she took two weeks. It really wasn’t a big deal at all as far as we were all concerned.
IMHO, there is no way in hell one bereavement day is reasonable for the loss of a spouse, expected or not. Give her the two later days she has requested.
I think the problem here is how you approached the question/problem.
If you had said something like “hey, this employee wants 3 death day holidays and we generally give them and I am very inclined to do so but because of X is there ANY good reason that I can’t think of right now to NOT grant them?” it would be one thing.
But, IMO you came off as somebody who doesn’t want to so even under normal circumstances and was looking for any reason to not do so in this case because it would hurt the bottom line.
I think it gets into a very shady grey area when an employer starts to question what the employee is doing with the time off they are owed under their own policy. You said they get three days; give them three days. It’s really none of your business whether she’s sobbing on the casket, digging the grave herself, arranging travel for family, or mourning by going on a bender at an amusement park - especially when you’re doing the questioning ahead of time. I can maybe see the case for asking some questions after the fact if she is actually spotted on the Ferris wheel, but until then, giving the benefit of the doubt is definitely the non-douchey thing to do. Unless you’re questioning whether or not the death actually happened, give her the damn time off.
My company gives three days with the restriction that one of the days must be the day of the funeral. I’m skeptical that “most” companies provide more although clearly some do.
I think there is a reasonable window when a company should expect the employee to use this benefit. I’m from a large family, I shouldn’t be allowed to wait for five of them to die and then take three weeks paid leave to “grieve” as I tour Europe.
Someone has to pay for this, whether it is reduced benefits elsewhere, costs passed to customers, etc. There are lots of factors about the company’s operating margings that make me cringe when I hear others say “pay it, give her more”.
Finally, when I am not at work, no one except my supervisor knows if I’m taking a vacation day, a day of leave-without-pay, bereavement leave or any other type of absence. There should be no way that approving this will lead to future abuse.
The hard part is discovering what is abuse of the policy. While many of the choices she could have made would not have caused me to bat an eye, the…“let me just take a few more days July 4th vacation” didn’t sit well with me. However, I do see the point that getting away with her family may be considered part of her grieving process even though she didn’t choose to take the days offered initially.
We get 5 days for a “close family member”, which they define as a pretty generous list. For example, last year I was given five days to travel to Texas after my husband’s grandmother’s death. There was no funeral, just cremation, and the family scheduled the memorial gathering about a week and a half after her death for airline & work related reasons.
I work for a Fortune 50. However, both of my previous employers (clocking in at 22 and 51 employees respectively) had very similar policies. In fact, at the smaller company, my childhood nanny (who took care of me for my entire childhood) had died, and after my mom called me my boss found me crying at my desk. She insisted I go home, and then the company owner called me and said despite the policy being “family only”, I was welcome to take bereavement leave so I could go home to NJ for the funeral.
I work for a US based international company with about 20,000 employees. Our policy states you can receive regular pay “for up to three consecutive workdays” after the death of any immediate family member. Immediate family is defined as spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild.
I posted a similar question on a professional management organization board and most of the policy verbiage seemed to contain the words “consecutive” “may not be accumulated” and/or “travel to
and from the funeral location and attendance at the funeral.”
Since this is the first time anyone did not immediately (or within a week) take their bereavement time after a death, I may just leave well enough alone. I agree though, contrary to some people’s opinion, I don’t think employees should get time in the bank every time they suffer a loss to do with what they will. We have less than 30 employees and couldn’t function that way.
Actually the Jewish observe a day of mourning a year after the funeral [can’t remember what it is called, I observed it with an exBF the year after his father died.] so I could see someone requesting a day off the year following.
And I have a friend who always takes the anniversary of her father’s funeral off for a personal observation [she is catholic, not that it matters, though she does pay for a mass every year as well.]
We had a similar situation, in which I got called on the carpet for allowing an employee to take two of the “up to five at the manager’s discretion” days of bereavement leave at the time of death, and then the other three days seven months later.
I let the procedure continue for quite some time, being progressively chastised and then referred up the chain for higher-level beratement when I quietly refused to consider requiring the last three days to be taken as vacation days. I wouldn’t have played games like that, except none of these twits ever asked me any questions. They just called me into their offices, and started in on a canned speech which they clearly had rehearsed together (some repeating the same phrases the last person had used) until I finally got to what I figured was the actual decision-maker.
I made two requests: a) that they all be there for that meeting, and b) that I have five minutes to talk at the beginning of it. I then explained to these twits the realities of burial at Arlington Cemetary, and the time scales involved. I also had on hand some useful referrences comparing the vacation leave offereings at our company with the needs of single Moms. I showed them the savings we as a company had enjoyed due to the supplemental health care provided to the families of soldiers, and how it dwarfed the costs of three days’ leave.
The widow buried her husband in peace and took an extra week off with the leave donated by those present at my meeting.
This whole “Everybody will take advantage of it” line is complete BS IMHO. You can never, and I mean never go wrong by supporting your employees in their time of grief. Adding to their stress, or failing to support their healing only increases the likelhood of a long period of reduced productivity and possibly eventual disability. You want to be supportive and help stave off depression any way you can. Like, for instances, encouraging them to look forward to some time to grieve with their loved ones, however far off tht opportunity might be.
And I don’t think anybody here is suggesting that. Wanting to spend a couple of days with family less than 3 weeks after her husband’s death is not swinging very far on this pendulum, IMO.