Bereavement leave

Bereavement is the specific time that passes after the death of a loved one. It is a period of intense emotional experiences, often extremely difficult for the person who is bereaved.

At this stage the employee requires additional support from human resource managers. This may be to show compassion and care. It may also be the granting of additional bereavement leave days. This option is most often written into a company's human resources policy – regardless of the legal provisions governing bereavement leave days for the death of a family member or other person in the direct care or dependency of the person requesting leave.

Bereavement Leave

Bereavement leaves are necessary for employees to make necessary arrangements, related to the death of a close relative, attend funeral or other related ceremonies. Sometimes people need to simply take time to grieve and return to an emotionally stable state.

Each company has its own policies, related to bereavement. In general bereavement leave policy should include description of allowed paid and/or non-paid leaves and time offs in cases, when family member, relative or friend of an employee dies.

Bereavement Leave Policy: What to Include?

Introducing bereavement leave is one of the parts of having compassionate leave policy in the company. Such a policy should foremost be flexible, as no two cases are similar and people tend to overcome grief in various ways.

According to CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) research, the most common practice is to allow five days of paid leave in case of emergencies. However, each company has its own practices, which vary quite a lot. Some companies offer only unpaid leaves, while others give up to two weeks of paid leave. These are opposite parts of the scale. First of all you should check with your company business processes and priorities. Whatever they are, it is always important to remember that employees work better in stable emotional state. Several days of leave might help them to get back and perform better, rather than being forced to grieve in the office.

Bereavement leave policy sometimes include distinction of family and relatives relationship, allowing more leave days in case if a close relative dies and fewer days in case of the death of farer relatives, like grandparents, in-laws or friends. However, in modern contest such distinction lines can be hard to draw.

PeopleForce has capacities to create custom leave management setup and manage all types of employees paid and non paid leave. You can always customize type and duration of leaves, allowed in your company and country of operation. Each employee will see their annual balance of leaves right on the dashboard. PeopleForce also allows employees to request bereavement leave in one click on their mobile application in case such emergency occurs.

At any time managers and employees would know that this particular employees is absent for bereavement leave. Colleagues will be able to express their condolences in a personal message through e-mail or social media, found in PeopleForce Employee Directory. Internal communication dashboard may also be right place to inform on the bereavement. There you can tag the employee in a twitter-like style and write a message of condolence and support.