When an employee faces a bereavement, it can be a difficult and emotional time. Therefore it is imperative that you give clear and immediate guidance on your compassionate leave policy.
How you deal with bereavement can be enormously helpful in an employee’s hour of need – giving timely advice on how much compassionate leave they are entitled to and whether that leave is paid or not, will go a long way to building a long lasting and loyal relationship with them.
What is compassionate leave?
In its most basic terms, compassionate leave is a right to unpaid leave to deal with emergencies involving a dependant. A dependant can be the employee’s husband/wife or partner, child, parent or anyone living in their household as a member of the family, a grandparent or even an elderly neighbour who relies on them for help.
The most complex can be how you manage compassionate leave for bereavement.
Individuals deal with the loss of a family member or friend in very different ways. For some, a return to work will be a welcome distraction and a chance to return to routine but for others, a return to work too early can delay the grieving process, only to resurface later in time.
So how long is long enough?
Whatever your own policy, the answer is to be as reasonable and consistent as possible and have clear compassionate leave guidelines that are clear and easy to understand for both the employee and the manager guiding a bereaved team member through the process.
Whilst employees are not automatically entitled to paid leave after a bereavement; the choice remains with the employer how many days are granted as paid. The UK average for paid compassionate leave for bereavement is five days. The key point to remember when creating your compassionate leave policy is to be reasonable and consistent as possible, taking care to apply what the custom and practice has been in the past and apply precedents fairly and consistently. Policies should be flexible and scalable to accommodate each individual circumstance.
Even so, employees cannot expect to be granted leave automatically. When leave isn’t granted, they may have to use their holiday allowance.
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