interpret funeral leave requirements

atrimble

I have an employee who's been with us for longer than I've been alive, who recently attended a family member's funeral and has asked the absence be paid under our funeral leave provision. Policy allows for spouse, children, parents, siblings grandparents/children, first aunt/uncle, immediate in-laws and "members of the immediate household having permanently resided under the same roof." I returned the time off request asking if the deceased was immediate family, and for obituary/funeral program. The employee's supervisor returned with "they were reared together - only surviving family member; EE is in charge of out of town arrangements" (though funeral was in town). Funeral program showed that EE was uncle of deceased; this relationship is not specified in our policy. I think it would be a bit unusual for an uncle and a nephew to be "reared together," but not impossible, and if they were reared together, it may qualify under the "immediate household" criterium.

Is this one of those "Exception" situations that the "Why We Hate HR" article states human resources people never make? Should I approve the requested type of leave, considering the service length/good record and the implied close relationship to the deceased, and drop the issue? We just modified the funeral leave policy to drop a "service as an unpaid pallbearer" option which allowed EEs to use funeral leave for non-family members (the funeral program listed EE as an honorary pallbearer), so I'm on the fence as to whether to use this situation as an example for new policy enforcment, or just let it go.

-Abby

LivindonSouth

The root cause of your problem is in the wording of your policy. 'First uncle' comes to mind as if HR is going into the geneology business and who would want to study a family tree? 'Having been raised under the same roof' is another one that opens your policy up to everybody but the postman. I suppose I would qualify for that one because I spent parts of early summers staying with (visiting) various relatives. And if you didn't already have enough, this pallbearer thing is one I cannot imagine. Your policy recognizes pallbearing like being a juror. Until you clip these various wings on your policy, you might as well tell employees to check the obits and go to at least one funeral per week, paid.

atrimble

Unfortunately, the "it takes a village" mentality is quite prevalent here, as close to half of our employees are non-Caucasian. Quite a few of our employees (as children) had been shuffled back and forth among relatives; a decade with Auntie Helen and six years with Cousin Jude would set them up with several "parents" under the provision of FMLA. I tried to keep those regulations in mind while redrafting our funeral leave policy. I can't seem to remember why we left in aunt/uncle and didn't include neice/nephew or first cousin.

We got rid of the pallbearer provision - that can't be used as an excuse any more.

It's not really a question of whether this absence will be paid, it's more of whether it comes out of the sick leave pool or the annual leave pool. Approved funeral absences come out of sick leave, all other funeral-based absences must come out of annual. The payroll has already been processed; EE will get paid. But I can shift from which pool of leave that pay comes from. That's the operational aspect of this post - I was looking more for "make or don't make an exception to the leave criteria" advice.

marc

I would lean toward allowing it as funeral leave. First, I assume (with all risks associated) that this long-term EE has and is a good EE, otherwise why have them around for the long term?

If this is the case, your reference to why we hate HR is appropriate, in my opinion, because here is a chance to utilize your discretion to allow this to pass. There is plenty of reason the not make a big deal out of it by doing so.

If you deny the request, I can hear the whispers already, "... heartless company and HR director have struck again. They are always trying to find ways to nickel and dime us. Poor ole Fred. Does nothing but keep his mouth shut and work his but off and for what? The minute he needs some consideration they turn their back on him."

"Did you know he practically raised that nephew of his? And they made him the executor of the estate - he was the only one left. Imagine having to use the last of your vacation time boxing up his nephews possessions. I bet that was heart-breaking."

"And now the company is making him use his vacation time. He'll need vacation just to recover from this. No one left to pass on the family name now..."

And the beat goes on.

As I see it, if you want to draw a line in the sand about funeral leave, you can find a more clear cut case than this one.

atrimble

Yes, he's a good employee.

>If you deny the request, I can hear the whispers already, "... heartless company and HR director
>have struck again. They are always trying to find ways to nickel and dime us. Poor ole Fred.
> Does nothing but keep his mouth shut and work his but off and for what? The minute he needs
>some consideration they turn their back on him."

>"Did you know he practically raised that nephew of his? And they made him the executor of the
>estate - he was the only one left. Imagine having to use the last of your vacation time
>boxing up his nephews possessions. I bet that was heart-breaking." "And now the company is
>making him use his vacation time. He'll need vacation just to recover from this. No one left
>to pass on the family name now..."


Absolutely - I can even identify the specific employees who would be saying all this!

Considering this case isn't very clear cut, I guess I shouldn't have to worry much about setting precedence; we can always say it was a judgment call.

njjel

We would take the ee at his word and give him the funeral leave. It's too bad though that it has to come from his sick leave and isn't a separate leave.

FunHRBanker

Our policy allows for 3 days funeral leave for immediate family (defined as the ee's spouse, parent, child, sibling; the ee's spouse's parent, child, or sibling; the employee's child's spouse; grandparents or grandchildren) and 1 day for someone other than the defined immediate family. Though it is not clarified if the one day is per year, or per death.

atrimble

Actually, we would allow him to classify it as Emergency Leave, which includes extenuating circumstances such as family death, house burning down, serious family illness, etc., and if so designated and confirmed, comes out of sick leave. We maintain separate sick and annual leave pools because we pay accrued annual leave upon separation, but not accrued sick leave. So employees, by policy insinuation, are encouraged to use sick leave whenever possible, and save up the annual leave as a separation benefit. I don't like it or agree with this, but that's how it's currently written. The employee who attends a non-Emergency Leave-qualifying funeral would expend annual leave, if available.

DeidreFR5

Not that I recommend it, but I worked in one place that if your name wasn't in the obituary, you didn't get leave.

LivindonSouth

My experience has been that this may be the number one thing abused to the hilt by employees. I think the rules should be clear, the family ties concisely defined and limited, three days per event between the date of death and date of ceremony up to and including the date of ceremony (often there is no funeral). Cutting ee's slack, not being consistent in application and managing it by emotion only increases the abuse.

My favorite is the ee who brought in a statement from the funeral home certifying he had attended his relative's funeral. The name of the city, the name of the funeral home and the name of the employee were all mispelled. A telephone call to the funeral home (with a close name) revealed that the document was fraudulent. Termination.

My next best favorite is the contract negotiations during which the union asked that 'close cousin' be included in the list of relatives. I asked for clarification of what that could possibly mean, they huddled, and dropped the request.

HRinFL

Had one where the ee wanted three days off during the Christmas holiday to attend her aunt's funeral. Problem was, the aunt's funeral was two weeks earlier.

aliciac

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read that you can't have a policy that grants leave to only one side of a relationship and not the other ie: you allow leave for attending a funeral of a first aunt/uncle but not a niece/nephew.
The reason this is bad is because it sets itself up to be age discrimination.
I'll try to locate the case I read about this, but it was based on a policy that allowed leave for the death of a grandparent, but not of a grandchild. A policy like that basically denies an older person the benefits that their own grandchild/neice/nephew would be given if the situation were reversed.