Why would you assume I don’t know the circumstances? I know the exact circumstances. I know her family isn’t getting together to do anything about the death because she told me. I know she is increasing her vacation because she now has these extra two days now. I know that her kids, his step kids had no relationship with the man and she always had to visit alone because he wasn’t welcome. But that doesn’t matter because it is my job to be fair, no matter if she is dancing on his grave or sitting shiva. I know much more about this ladies personal life than I want to know. (Which isn’t hard because I would prefer to know exactly nothing). I know that my entire staff knows all this too.
What I didn’t know was if it was fair, given our current policy ,to give her the added paid days off to her vacation. What I also didn’t know is how some people in this thread would allow their emotions to take over about a circumstance that they REALLY don’t know anything about. It was a fairness, logic question. Not a poor bereaved widow is being abused by the big bad corporation which is not the case at all. But maybe I’ll just go out for lunch now and find some orphans and puppies to kick.
Aaaaand there it is. The all-important tiny scrap of information that makes the whole thing make sense.
And of course it matters. If the time off clearly (and admittedly - by the widow) has nothing to do with grieving or healing then it’s inappropriate to use bereavement leave for it.
I don’t see how any of those circumstances are relevant. She will still be grieving with her children, a few weeks after the death of her spouse. You are still nitpicking over whether her request to use all 3 days of bereavement are valid or not.
And spending additional time with her children, even if they didn’t like her husband, would provide no comfort to her in managing her grief. Right.
Yep - that’s the rub. Her husband just died. It sounds like she liked him well enough. Give her the two extra days and be done with it.
Arguing over minutia about if she sufficiently liked her spouse, or if her kids did, or if she’s grieving in a way in which you deem appropriate makes you seem petty and small.
I think the OP should even deny this lady actual vacation time. I mean her husband just died and she’s obviously not going to actually enjoy any days off from work. So, if she is going to be miserable she might as well be miserable at work working. Am I right? Heck, I think a perfectly cromulent company policy would be that employees must work 18 hours a day seven days a week for 6 months after a spouse dies. Because if they want time off to “enjoy” themselves that just means they are glad the ole fart or ball n chain finally kicked the bucket.
That changes everything, then. You should not only refuse the leave, but you should demand that she pay you back for the previous day off, and tell her that time off for any future deaths, births, and car accidents need to be approved by you in advance. In writing.
Hell, if I were you, if I were you, I’d give her an oral warning for not keeping him on life support until 6PM on the Friday before Labor Day weekend.
e. **FUNERAL/BEREAVEMENT LEAVE [EMERGENCY FUNERAL LEAVE] **- Emergency paid leave will be granted for a maximum of three (3) working days to all regular employees. If extended travel is required to attend the funeral, such leave may extend up to two (2) days beyond the funeral and will be charged against accumulated leave after advance notice to the Department Director or designee. Immediate family is defined, for the purpose of this rule, as spouse, son, daughter, stepchild, step siblings, stepparent, parent, parent-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, grandparent, grandparent-in-law, grandchild, approved domestic partner, or the approved domestic partner‟s son or daughter.
Tech company, 2000+ employees at the Montreal office, 10 000+ worldwide (different offices may have different policies).
Applicable rules - Death in the family Immediate family
An employee may be absent from work for five whole days (three paid days and two unpaid
days) in the event of the death or funeral of a member of his immediate family (his spouse,
his child, the child of his spouse, his father, his mother, his brother or his sister). Extended family
An employee may be absent from work for one whole paid day in the event of the death or
funeral of one of his grandparents, one of his grandchildren, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law
or the father, mother, brother or sister of his spouse.
The employee is required to advise his supervisor of his absence as soon as possible.
(Note that the company does have generous sick days and vacation days, as well as flex-time, so additional time not covered under the policy above could probably be negotiated.)
Now, for my opinion: Give the woman the full three days off. There is no conceivable way that this policy can be meaningfully abused. Even if a person has been estranged from his or her spouse, parents, or children for years, there are still legal and emotional consequences to deal with.
If I was the coworker of a person denied their full 3 days of leave for the death of a spouse, my moral would drop like a stone, even if I did not like or respect the person. My reason: because if that person is treated that way than what is to stop the possible future denial of similar requests I might have.
Even if that person is assumed by everyone not really be that sad about the death because of their previous statements, you cannot prove or truly know what they are feeling inside.
If you don’t grant the leave, you’ll be upsetting all 30 of your employees. Like you, they might guess the lady is not really going to honestly grieve those 2 days, but they are days she deserves to have off because her family member died - and their own might too someday.
Upon review, I think I agree with alice, mostly because of the text I bolded. Let people grieve the way they need to, and provide whatever reasonable support they request within the guidelines. you won’t be sorry.
Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if the kids hated dad. It doesn’t even matter if the mom hates the kids. You’re not providing this time off for the kids. You’re providing it for the widow. And if her greiving process is to spend a few days surrounded by people she hates then that’s her greiving process. It’s not an abuse of policy to give her that time off.
Sorry I’m late to the discussion. I’m an HR manager in charge of leave policies for a very large retail company.
Our bereavement policy specifies “up to” three paid days off to include the day of the funeral and the day before and the day after the funeral, if the employee is normally scheduled to work. So if your family member’s funeral is on a Tuesday and you normally have Monday off, you get paid leave for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Managers and HR have the lattitude to grant additional personal leave, but that is unpaid. In some situations the employee might have a legitimate FMLA claim as well (for example a distraught spouse may be eligible for leave due to mental anguish or depression, if certified by a health care professional). That is also unpaid unless vacation time is used.
What I would do in your case depends heavily on the culture of your organization. In some companies I’ve worked for, giving the other two days as paid bereavement would not be worth a second thought. Here at my company, I might do it if the two days included an actual memorial service for the deceased. In any case if I were you I would ask some other managers at your company and see what they would do – the important thing is that you want to be consistent and not treat this employee differently than you would another employee in the same situation, or you are asking for trouble.
Give her the days, it’s of no importance what their family dynamic was or what she’ll be doing for those two days. Just give her her additional two days. How hard is that?
Bereavement Leave
We grant up to five work days off with pay in the event of the death of an immediate family member, including a spouse/domestic partner, fiancee, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, stepparent or stepchild of you or your spouse/domestic partner. One day off with pay may be granted to attend the funeral of other relatives. Requests for bereavement leave should be made to your supervisor.
So 5 days for close family or spouse’s family, and no mention of sequential or even within a set time frame. But I know that my supervisor would be asking questions of an employee that had a relative die every month, or that did something like taking 3 days now and 2 more around Thanksgiving.
Something just occured to me. The whole you get three consecutive days but if one of those is a holiday or weekend or your day off it doesn’t count. You could well argue that could be “abused” as well.
We all well know Sally could have had the funeral on Friday or even the weekend but we all know that calculating layabout scheduled it for Wednesday so she could get her full three days.
Give the darn surviving spouse whatever number of days you said will and be done with it. Stop looking for excuses to not give them or just don’t offer them in the first darn place. Stuff like this is why employees often don’t like or more importantly don’t trust their employers. And IMO that does way more harm to the bottom line the rare occasional Sleazy Sally that uses those free death vacation days to go to Vegas.
You bosses sure as heck don’t like it when employees pull legaleeze crap like “it’s not in my written job description to do that task” now do you?
Lose all your morals?