Compassionate leave - what is your company's policy?

[emsiewill]

A colleague at work has just lost his mother. He has been told he can take 3 of the 5 (I think) days that he had off as compassionate leave "you can work longer days to make the rest up, or take it as annual leave". He also has to take a day's leave for the funeral. A couple of weeks before she died, he had to take 2 days leave to be with her when she was seriously ill.

I am outraged by this. The official policy is that compassionate leave is at management discretion (and is for bereavement, or serious illness of a close relative). I think there should be a set period (is 7 days unreasonable?), and any more at manager's discretion.

When my mum died, I worked for a different company. They gave me 2 weeks off.

What does your company do? And do you think my colleague should fight this? (although it's not the best time for him to take this up, obviously)

Oh, should have used a few of these to express my feelings on this

The company I worked for "offically" gave 3 days compassionate leave. However when my husband died I took a month off at full pay and was told I could stay out as long as I needed to. When I went back to work I worked half an hour less per day than I was supposed to so that I could take my daughter to the childminders and pick her up (childminder's hours were limited).

When my dad died I got 3 days of, while a colleague was told by our boss to get herself signed off for a month. A total bitch of a boss and I dread to think what she would have said when my DH became ill.

Same company, different boss. When we knew my DH didn't have long to live the sort of social nurse at the hospital told me I should get myself signed off work as 'sick'. I discussed this with my boss and they were fine about it, I was off for a total of 3 months which included 6 weeks after his death.

3 days is standard but yes, I think there should be some discretion

Oh yes, and Kate's reminded me, I also returned part time for a couple of weeks.

I think that sucks. But I think that the fact that it's at the management's discretion makes it difficult to fight. I think technically our company policy is to allow 5 days, but for your co. to take into account days prior to the bereavement while him ma was unwell seems incredibly mean.

i've just looked at our leave in these circs (also covers family and domestic leave). Usually 2 days paid leave but beyond that it is at manager's discretion. It's made very clear that extended paid time-off won't be allowed.

Ours is three days and for close relatives only. Tough if you were raised by your aunt or grandparents. Sorry to hear this Emsiewill.

As I'm in an updating mood this morning, I thought I'd update anyone who's interested on this.

My colleague decided that he was really unhappy with the way this had been handled, and expressed his feelings to a number of managers. He really had to fight (at a time that he didn't feel at all like fighting) to get them to understand that this is not an acceptable way to treat people. In the end, it wasn't about the number of days he was given, it was about the way the company dealt with someone who has just been bereaved.

The outcome is that all managers have been told to think about the way that they deal with someone who has been bereaved. A lot of the suggestions that he came up with are going to become offical policy - having a "back to work" interview, NOT debating with someone how many days they can take before they've even had the funeral and generally taking a much more human approach to it.

When discussing this with my colleague, we agreed that this probably happened because the particular managers that dealt with him are young, and have never been through this themselves, so were not well equipped to handle it - and were not trained / advised by the company as to how to handle it. I have had a bit of my faith in their humanity restored, as the 2 managers involved have taken him aside and apologised for the way they handled it, and for the extra burden they put on him at such a hard time.