Know Your Workplace’s Bereavement Leave Policy

Knowing your company’s bereavement policy now, before you need it can save you heartaches and headaches later on, if you ever need it. The bereavement leave policy where you work is as important to know as other company policies that cover time off from work.

Does Your Workplace Have a Bereavement Leave Policy?

First, find out if your workplace has an official bereavement policy. If they do, it may be readily available in an employee handbook. Keep a copy of your employee handbook at home, as as well as at work, if you can. This can be useful when you to refer to specific workplace policies while at home.

A standard employee handbook should cover personnel issues only, and not proprietary information, so there should be no reason that you cannot keep one at home.

If your workplace does not have an employee handbook, find out if there is an official bereavement policy in writing in the form of a memo or other document.

For a small workplace, ask the supervisor about the bereavement policy before you need it.

Understanding a Work Place Bereavement Leave Policy

Family Relationships

Most official bereavement policies cover certain basic issues. The first issue will be the employee’s relationship to the recently deceased. This information is spelled out in a standard workplace bereavement policy and typically includes a spouse, a child, a sister or a brother and parents. Sometimes it includes in-laws and grandparents. Progressive companies will officially include live-in domestic partners.

The group of people that is typically not covered by official work place bereavement policies is the parents of a live-in domestic parent.

Each work place is different, and uses differnet standards and definitions in determining family relationships in terms of bereavement policies.

Number of Days

The official workplace bereavement policy should also state how many days off can be taken by the employee. Either there will be set number of days, or a maximum number of days. This is an important distinction to make, since it will mean speaking to supervisor to determine the number of days of the leave.

Paid or Unpaid

The third important feature in a workplace bereavement policy is if the bereavement policy is all paid, partially-paid or completely unpaid.

Advantages to Knowing Your Work place’s Bereavement Leave Policy

There are advantages to knowing your work place’s bereavement leave policy before you ever need to use it.

1. Peace of Mind

There are obvious advantages to knowing your work place’s bereavement leave policy before you need it. One is that if and when you ever do need it you will not be scrambling around worried about getting fired from work while you are in mourning.

2. Management May Not Know Policy

Another advantage to knowing the your work place’s bereavement leave policy before you need it is that you could very well end up wit a supervisor that is both callous and clueless.

In my case, my grandmother had passed and company policy stated that three days of bereavement leave were provided for the death of any relative, including a grandparent. Three days of paid bereavement paid were given, according to the policy.

When I told my direct supervisor that I would not be staying for the day, she asked why. I told her my grandmother had passed over the weekend. Her response was, “So?”

Because it was the 7am shift, we had a skeleton staff and I had to wait until 8am to speak with the HR person.

I did not clock in and I waited in the lunch room.

When the HR woman showed, up, I told her what happened. She apologized for the supervisor, told me to take the three days, as per policy, and she sent me home.

3. Knowing Your Workplace Rights

Had I not already known the work place’s bereavement leave policy, I may have simply punched in and gone about my day. However, because I had known the work place’s bereavement leave policy, I was able to stand up for my employee rights and I was able to peacefully mourn and help my family say goodbye to our beloved grandmother.