Bereavement leave?

[OurBigTrip]

It is gumbo but I can't imagine asking you to come back to work in 3 days if you lost your wife. I know for a small company it can be costly. I can't imagine WANTING a person at their desk. I can't even begin to tell you how utterly useless I was for days after the funeral. I didn't eat or asleep for days afterward, how productive do you think you would be. My boss saw me at the funeral and told his supervisor not you expect me any time soon

I have to edit that my salary was cut to 50%

It's fairly common knowledge that bereavement pay is normally to ensure that the employee has time off to plan/attend a memorial or funeral. It's not intended to provide extended grieving time that is necessary in order to adjust to the death of an immediate family member.

It's nice that your company did it, but I would never expect a business to provide someone with months of paid time off due to a death in the family, unless there is vacation/sick time available.

 

[OurBigTrip]

Wait none for a sibling!

I think some issues is the idea of bereavement pay and just a leave. FMLA may come into play for a deceased significant other or parents. Also if you got a diagnoses of anxiety or depression most places would have to provide short term disability.

There is no federal requirement for short-term disability, and there are only five states that require it.

 

[wilkeliza]

There is no federal requirement for short-term disability, and there are only five states that require it.

I'm in NY where it is required. Guess I didn't realize not everywhere got it.

 

[belleandthebeast]

We get 5 days for a parent, child, or spouse. 3 days for a sibling or Grandparent. 1 day for other relatives (cousins, Aunts, etc). Time off where needed for out of town funerals. And then hours or 1/2 days for anybody else as long as our departments are staffed. Our company also has other offices cover an office/department where a parent/child/spouse has died so the entire department/office can attend the funeral.

 

[tvguy]

Not sure about parents, partner or children but I know we don't get any time for grandparents not even the funeral.

One of my colleague's grandmother died last year and he had to pay the shift back that he was given off for the funeral.

So you do get time off, just not time with pay.

My friends who have jobs that do not give any paid time off for anything remind me of that constantly.
DW's best friend works for a guy who doesn't want to bother with all the vacation and sick time record keeping. Everyone gets a check for 6 weeks pay at the end of the year in compensation for no paid time off. You can take as much time off as you want without pay for any reason.

 

[aprilgail2]

It's fairly common knowledge that bereavement pay is normally to ensure that the employee has time off to plan/attend a memorial or funeral. It's not intended to provide extended grieving time that is necessary in order to adjust to the death of an immediate family member.

It's nice that your company did it, but I would never expect a business to provide someone with months of paid time off due to a death in the family, unless there is vacation/sick time available.

I got the three days when my dad died and was happy to get back to work to try to get things back to "normal"- my friend took her 3 days off when her 14 year old son died plus 2 extra to get things sorted out before she went back to work (I took 4 days off for that one too to help plan the funeral, the wake and burial but used my personal days since godson doesn't count for bereavement time)- no one was "done" grieving but you do have to keep on going and to me sitting home thinking about it 24/7.

 

[scrapquitler]

Just curious what your company's policy is on bereavement leave. I guess not so much their "policy" but how long do you get off of work for the death of:

parent-
spouse-
child-
grandparent-

etc-

Where I work, we just have 'paid time off' which accrues at different rates based on how long you have worked there. If you've worked less than 5 years, you earn 10 days a year. We can also earn extra PTO by working on holidays and foregoing 'holday pay' in the paycheck. You can take those paid days off in whatever increments you want (as little as 15 minutes) for whatever reason you want, so really there's no specific bereavement time off.

 

[disneychrista]

I believe our is up to 5 days UNPAID leave for immediate family. Though you are not going to loose your job if you need to take longer. If you need/want to be paid you have to use your vacation time.

 

[tennisfan]

So you do get time off, just not time with pay. My friends who have jobs that do not give any paid time off for anything remind me of that constantly. DW's best friend works for a guy who doesn't want to bother with all the vacation and sick time record keeping. Everyone gets a check for 6 weeks pay at the end of the year in compensation for no paid time off. You can take as much time off as you want without pay for any reason.

It's up to the manager to agree, if they dont agree you have yo swap the shift with someone. Other then that we can't take unpaid leave, I have tried and was told no. Our leave is generous compared to the US but it has to be booked at least 28 days before you want it, any leave we don't use we lose except one week which we can carry over

 

[msjprincess]

We get three days off with pay for immediate family (spouse, children, parents, siblings, and corresponding in-laws).

Same here.

You can take more time off without pay or personal days/vacation. Or if you're seeing a doctor for stress/mental health because of the death you can sometimes go out on disability.

 

[ronandannette]

So you do get time off, just not time with pay.

My friends who have jobs that do not give any paid time off for anything remind me of that constantly.
DW's best friend works for a guy who doesn't want to bother with all the vacation and sick time record keeping. Everyone gets a check for 6 weeks pay at the end of the year in compensation for no paid time off. You can take as much time off as you want without pay for any reason.

Kind of the opposite thing at my job. We are all salaried employees - no hourly workers and no accounting for time spent, either more or less. Vacations and leave of any kind are at the discretion of management in the local departments but the regular paycheques keep coming unless a formal leave of absence or short-term disability claim is made.

 

[luvavacation]

Reading this just makes me dislike my husband's work bosses even more.

My husband has worked at his job for 24 years. He has always received one day off for immediate family (including child's death, God forbid), 1/2 day for anyone else. When his father or mother died, one day off. When my father and brother died, 1/2 day.

He could use vacation days, but then he has to face the ire of his bosses that don't want unplanned vacations disrupting the work schedule. DH takes his allowed bereavement day and then goes back to work, ready or not.

 

[AndreaDM]

I got 3 days off when my niece died, my BIL, her father only got 1 (paid, he took more time off unpaid of course). For a spouse, child or parent we could easily take a week or more with no problems. We could also ease back into work at our comfort level, I have great co-workers.

A friend lost her young husband very suddenly a few years ago and I believe she got the standard 3 days, however, enough co-workers pooled some of their vacation days to give her 2 or 3 weeks off. I thought that was very kind and generous of them.

 

[tvguy]

Kind of the opposite thing at my job. We are all salaried employees - no hourly workers and no accounting for time spent, either more or less. Vacations and leave of any kind are at the discretion of management in the local departments but the regular paycheques keep coming unless a formal leave of absence or short-term disability claim is made.

I was salaried too in my last job. They kind of danced around the law with us salaried folks when it came to things like jury duty. vacation and sick leave.
I ended up on Jury duty for 6 1/2 weeks and the company tried to limit me to 2 weeks paid time off The Judge had a nice talk with the Business Manager and told them if I was salaried, they were agreeing to pay me so much a year without regard to actual hours worked. So they couldn't withhold pay.

 

[wvjules]

At my old job we got 3 days for extended family (granparents, aunts, uncles, etc.) and 5 days for immediate family. For this job I think we use our accumulated sick time.

ETA: We don't even have to use it consecutively. When my grandfather died in June I was off on Monday becasue I was already out of town with the family. (I came to visit my pap and keep my grandmother company. We had NO IDEA he was going to die that weekend.) I went home to work on Tuesday and Wednesday and took the rest of my bereavement on Thursday and Friday for the memorial services and funeral.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

This is for a white-collar company where most employees have some kind of college degree. Most if not all employees are salaried.

Paid leave:
10 days for spouse/domestic partner or child.
5 days for parent or sibling.
3 days for grandparent, grandchild, or in-law.
1 day for uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, first cousin.