Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Compassionate leaveBereavementLeave

Bereavement and compassionate leave: What’s the right thing to do?

by Jo Faragher 22 Feb 2017
by Jo Faragher 22 Feb 2017 Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg says that generous policies, such as paid bereavement leave, increase engagement and loyalty
David Buchan/REX/Shutterstock
Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg says that generous policies, such as paid bereavement leave, increase engagement and loyalty
David Buchan/REX/Shutterstock

Facebook has announced that employees can now take up to 20 days of paid leave if an immediate family member dies.

Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who lost her husband in 2015, said: “We need public policies that make it easier for people to care for their children and ageing parents and for families to mourn and heal after loss.

Compassionate leave resources

How to devise and implement a policy on compassionate leave

Task: Decide the organisation’s policy on compassionate leave

Compassionate leave contract clause

“Companies that stand by the people who work for them do the right thing and the smart thing – it helps them serve their mission, live their values, and improve their bottom line by increasing the loyalty and performance of their workforce.”

The policy extends to allow employees to take up to 10 days’ leave to grieve an extended family member, and six weeks to care for a sick relative. The social network has also introduced “family sick time” – three days to take care of a family member with a short-term illness, such as a child with flu.

But the widespread publicity around Facebook’s generous bereavement leave policy has raised the question of “how long is enough when a family member dies?”, and has highlighted how subjective issues around bereavement can be.

Some individuals cope better with grief than others, for example, while certain employees might have been particularly close to an “extended” family member and require a longer period to adjust.

In a small minority of serious cases, such as the death of an employee’s child, a more bespoke and phased approach may be needed to return to work.

A spokesperson for Damsons, a company that specialises in wills, funeral planning and estate administration, said: “For many, returning to work can be a positive distraction and a chance to regain routine.

“However, if pressured back into work before they are ready, there is a chance that the employee won’t be very productive and it may even cause a delay in the grieving process, so how can business calculate the length of paid leave? Policies should be flexible and scalable to accommodate each individual’s circumstances.”

According to Acas, the Employment Rights Act 1996 gives employees a day-one right to have “reasonable” time off to deal with an emergency, which could include a bereavement involving a dependant. But how do employers tend to deal with bereavement on a practical level?

In 2014, XpertHR ran a survey on compassionate leave arrangements, which included the following findings.

The average number of days granted for compassionate leave is five

When asked “What is the maximum number of days’ paid compassionate leave employees at your organisation can take per year?”, the mean response was 5.2 days. Among the top 10% of respondents in terms of leave offered, the average period was 10 days.

XpertHR’s findings reflect the CIPD’s research on bereavement, stating that most employees get five days’ paid leave to deal with such emergencies.

  • Does your organisation measure the number of days taken as compassionate leave?
  • How many days are taken as paid compassionate leave per 100 employees per year?

Most employers have a formal policy on compassionate leave

More than three-quarters of respondents to XpertHR’s survey said they had a compassionate leave policy in place, but there was still a sizeable proportion (around a fifth) who claimed they made ad-hoc arrangements when necessary.

Having a formal policy was more likely in the public sector, where 84.3% of respondents reported doing so.

  • Does your organisation have a compassionate leave policy in place?
  • Who has the main responsibility for dealing with compassionate leave requests in your organisation?

Compassionate leave tends to be paid

Almost 60% of respondents reported that they offered paid compassionate leave, while 37.7% said it was a combination of paid and unpaid.

Perhaps surprisingly, smaller companies (with fewer than 250 employees) were more likely to pay employees during time off to deal with personal circumstances – this was the case at 63% of respondents. Almost all employers offered full pay during this period.

  • Is compassionate leave paid or unpaid at your organisation?
  • What percentage of leave do employees at your organisation tend to receive?

Offering compassionate leave does not negatively impact the business

Respondents to XpertHR’s survey overwhelmingly reported that employees taking time out for compassionate reasons had no adverse effects. More than half (55%) disagreed and a further 29.4% strongly disagreed with the statement “We have experienced resourcing issues as a result of levels of compassionate leave taken by an employee”.

Companies that did not offer paid compassionate leave were more likely to have experienced resourcing issues, with 23% reporting this to be the case.

  • To what extent do you agree with the following statement? “We have experienced resourcing issues as a result of levels of compassionate leave taken by employees.”

Policies such as compassionate leave support employee engagement

HR professionals seem to agree with Sheryl Sandberg’s thoughts on how supporting employees through personal issues can increase their loyalty and performance.

More than nine in 10 respondents said they either strongly agreed or agreed with the assertion that “Enabling employees to balance their work and home commitments increases employee motivation in the long term”. Only just over 3% of employers believed this not to be the case.

  • To what extent do you agree with the following statement? “Enabling employees to balance their work and home commitments increases employee motivation in the long term.”
Jo Faragher
Jo Faragher

Jo Faragher has been an employment and business journalist for 20 years. She regularly contributes to Personnel Today and writes features for a number of national business and membership magazines. Jo is also the author of 'Good Work, Great Technology', published in 2022 by Clink Street Publishing, charting the relationship between effective workplace technology and productive and happy employees. She won the Willis Towers Watson HR journalist of the year award in 2015 and has been highly commended twice.

previous post
Dads face negative bias in quest for work-life balance
next post
Employment status: will 2017 bring new legal rights for casual workers?

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You may also like

Holiday pay changes: how entitlement will be simplified

26 May 2023

Carer’s Leave Bill receives Royal Assent

25 May 2023

Coronation time off: ‘Spare a thought’ for those...

3 May 2023

Carer’s Leave Bill passed by MPs

3 Feb 2023

EE offers days off in exchange for bank...

1 Feb 2023

Firms join forces to support employees with divorce...

25 Jan 2023

Travel disruption: employers’ questions answered

3 Jan 2023

Carer’s Leave Bill gains support among MPs

21 Oct 2022

Death of Queen Elizabeth II: National mourning begins

9 Sep 2022

Supporting Muslims during Eid: Five employer questions

7 Jul 2022

  • The HR Bundle: Your one-stop guide to building a successful global HR Department PROMOTED | Get your hands on Deel’s free HR bundle...Read more
  • The Benefits of an Employee Assistance Programme PROMOTED | EAPs support employees in a range of ways...Read more
  • Intergenerational working and how to manage up and down the generations PROMOTED | The benefits and challenges of intergenerational workplaces...Read more
  • Bereavement in the workplace: How training can help HR get it right PROMOTED | HR professionals play an essential role...Read more
  • UK workforce mental wellbeing needs PROMOTED | The mental wellbeing support employers are providing misses the mark...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2023

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2023 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+