Another funeral leave question

Ruskanen · May 2003

How would you handle this? You have an employee who has an out of state grandparent that dies. The employee has no intention of attending the funeral. The employee expresses no remorse over the passing of grandparent, and even comments that no one in the family was close to this grandparent, and they were even relieved to see grandparent go because the grandparent was a cantankerous pain in the tush. Then, employee applies for 1 day funeral leave under company policy. Do you grant that employee the 1 day, even if it is not used for what it is intendend? I would view funeral leave to be used to attend a funeral or at least to grieve. Is it a freebie if anyone covered by the policy dies whethter the employee intends to attend the funeral or not?

JudyRoy · May 2003

Our policy is that you MUST attend the funeral if you are taking the day off or use the time as travel to/from the funeral. We grant three days bereavement leave for the immediate family. Not cousins, aunts, uncles. Grandparents are considered "immediate family". Our problem is we have employees whose grandparents die on a "regular" basis. I sometimes wonder how many grantparents a person can have!

SMace · May 2003

How do you know if they attend the funeral?

OHI182 · May 2003

Believe it or not, our company requests that you either bring in the funeral notice from the funeral home or the obituary. I personally think this is taking the caring and personalization out of our working environment. Although, I think this is going a little too far, I understand they have come out with this policy due to people abusing the system. Like the old saying.......a few bad apples.....

LindaS · May 2003

Our funeral leave policy expressly states that funeral leave is intended to allow the employee time to attend the funeral. I recently had the same thing happen wherein I had a grandparent that passed away and, although our policy allowed for three paid days off, I knew I wasn't going to attend the funeral and my sense of honesty took over and I didn't ask for the time off. I think the attitude of "it's owed to me" is pretty sad but if the employee is demanding the time off, request verification that he attended the funeral.

Human Resources Manager · May 2003

Our policy is that funeral leave is for making funeral arrangements and/or attending the funeral. In our policy, Grandparents are not considered immediate family, and only unpaid time off would be granted. We also require some sort of documentation (obituary or funeral program) to keep on file, which cuts down on fictitious deceased Grandparents.

HS · May 2003

Playing devil's advocate here, what if the way the employee was acting was how he/she deals with grief? Maybe they really do care about this grandparent and need the day to grieve. I say give it to them and don't make a mountain out of a molehill!

ritaanz · May 2003

There are times when the grandparents are in another country. I have had employees take the day to gather their families together and grieve for the deceased. The hassle of figuring out who should get the day is not worth it. Pay it and move on to something positive, such as lunch.

scottorr · May 2003

We never know what people are really feeling inside. Often people portray a rough exterior when they are insecure on the inside. That being said, our bereavemnt leave is for purposes of attending funerals and/or grieving. If you offer others to use this time then you must let this employee as well. As another question to anyone who only allows time to attend a funeral, how do you verify that the employee actually attend the funeral? Do you require a photo copy of the attendance log?

My point being that you can not single out one employee and tell them they can not use the same benefit as everyone else.

Don D · May 2003

I agree with Ritaanz and will go a step further. Funeral leave should be titled "Bereavement Leave". Some people don't have funerals in the traditional sense. Some have funerals so quick, as required by custom, as to not allow distantly located people to attend. Some cremate. Some bury at sea. Some, I assume, burn on a pire and some bodies are never found. Bereavement policies should have room for all of these considerations without regard to whether or not the grieving person sits in a pew at a ceremony or stands and bows his head under a canvas tent. And I believe firmly that if a company has a policy, it should allow time off in accordance with the letter of the policy without regard to how I might assess the level of bereavement, if any at all.

Rockie · May 2003

I agree with Don. It should be called "Bereavement Leave" It's not worth the effort to try to second guess people and their motives when it comes to grieving. I believe people get out of life what they put into it and somewhere down the line, they pay for deception.

Hunter1 · May 2003

An interesting question, and quite a difference of opinions. We have five labor agreements, soon to be six, (don't ask; public sector) and each of them says "up to three days in order to attend the funeral". By the way, it's referred to as bereavement leave. We don't require an obit or other documentation of attendance, and I wouldn't argue with an employee about how much he/she is grieving, but this is not an automatic grant of three days off. We do expect employees to use the time judiciously. On the other hand, a couple of years ago, we had a young manager lose a child to SIDS, and when he talked to me, I told him that 'within reason' he should come back to work when he felt he was ready. He did. Sometimes, I feel somewhat that 'rules are made to be broken'.

Don D · May 2003

Our union agreement, where I just left, said "Three successive scheduled workdays of paid leave including the day of the funeral". There was no requirement to ATTEND the funeral, just to manage the days in sequence. If the funeral was on Saturday and that wasn't a work day, the ee got paid leave either for Thursday and Friday, or Monday only, since it was required that the funeral date be tied to the paid days.

Although I have extreme empathy for your gentleman with the sids loss, selective application of the policy or excessive demands on those affected to prove their feelings or movements, can bite the old royal ass.

Lola815 · May 2003

Yes, give the employee the day off. I just attended a seminar were the speaker said that when manager's "assume" behavior they usually end up with a lawsuit. You are assuming this employee won't attend the funeral or that he is not going to spend the day greiving.

It sounds like this is really bothering you, so I would suggest writing a more specific policy for the future, but let this one go.

Sueg · May 2003

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-15-03 AT 01:34PM (CST)[/font][p]We had an employee who requested time off for the funeral of a friend (unpaid). She and her husband were seen shopping for a new car. Needless to say, this fell under a entirely different employment category.

Another funeral leave question

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