5 days bereavement leave for losing Mum, is this poor?

[TeapotCollection]

A colleague of mine lost her Mum over Christmas and she’s been told that’s all she’ll get. I think that’s shocking for the loss of a parent, interesting to hear if it’s normal. 5 days includes the day of the funeral as well

When I lost my Mum they gave me longer but we had different owners then, I was very surprised to hear this

You have to look at it in context with other allowances. We only give 5 days leave for bereavement but also have very generous holiday and sickness entitlement.

5 days for a parent, 3 days for a sibling and 1-2 days for a grandparent would he standard where I’ve worked.
any longer would be signed off on SSP

Interesting responses. I was allowed a paid day off for my dad’s funeral (up at 4am for 8 hour round trip) but that was all (education).

Now 10 days but was previously 5 when I lost a parent. I went back but wish I'd taken more.

I took two weeks, one week was unpaid but I was told that I should have come back sooner…I don’t work there anymore!

One of my team had this recently with the (expected) death of his elderly father. The company’s policy was up to 5 days at mangers discretion but didn’t list who you could take it for. I think the discretion part was to stop people taking the piss, looking to take a week because a distant relative they barely knew had passed.

I asked Hr what we could do if he needed more time and I was told he would need to use holiday or we discuss unpaid leave. In the end he needed longer to make arrangements and do the funeral so I just quietly agreed with him a couple of extra days “working remotely” with just the occasional email check and forwarding anything needing action.

The wife of a chap who is my line report had a stillbirth just short of her due date. HR told me he only had 4 days compassionate leave. So I fudged his absence record.

When my mum passed 6 weeks ago I took 8 days off, my boss did the same as I'd done for the other chap. But I wish I'd also got signed off

I'm in the Scottish Civil Service. My mum died of pancreatic cancer on 7th December, funeral was last week. I was on compassionate care leave, was due to go back this Thursday but that ended when mum died so got 5 days bereavement leave and special leave for the funeral.

I'd had the odd ad hoc day when I'd been a bit wobbly at work while she was ill. Dr signed me off for two weeks prior to getting compassionate care leave but my manager used her discretion to avoid that period of sick leave affecting my trigger points. I realise I'm lucky to get this time off.

I'm sorry for your friend's loss. She will need to check her contract of employment / employee handbook regarding policy, as every company is different. One of my old companies only gave 1 day's leave...even when one poor team member's parent died unexpectedly and she had to go back to Australia for the funeral.

Standard

It doesn't sound unreasonable.

I took off three days for DM's funeral (as it included a day's driving either side of a Thursday funeral), three days for FIL's funeral, which included flying to the USA, and just one day for DF - covid restrictions so no family gatherings; I just flew up and down on the same day.

My brother and SIL took care of all the arrangements for my parents, so I had no administrative role, which I think would make a difference.

I think companies need to have fixed policies, but should be discretely flexible with them.

Pretty standard
I left work to be with mum and she died that night, then took 2 days off after that plus the funeral was an extra day

In the NHS we get 3 days. I lost my mum before Christmas and have been singed off for 4 weeks.

5 days is more than most people are entitled to, IME.

I am aware that a LOT of managers will do what they can to be generous 'under the radar' and people are often given more leave than their contract dictates, but I am surprised to hear that people think 5 days is 'standard'.

Oh and my 'lovely' manager told me she was only able to 'allow' me to have one day off. So I also won't be returning and am furiously job hunting. Suggest your colleague goes to see their GP and gets a fit note.

Where I worked, the 5 days paid leave following the bereavement of a close relative, was intended to give people time to deal with making all the necessary arrangements. Those who needed it, then generally got themselves signed off sick as required. A few may have used some of their own annual leave as well, but being signed off was perfectly normal. Managers should be ensuring staff are aware this is normal as part of their support for the bereaved staff member.

When my Dad died I was a nursing student and I had to provide a death certificate to be allowed time off and extension period on an essay. No support was given.

Our family is having a crisis at present and my wonderful boss has advised and insisted I get signed off to my family. Which has been an amazing blessing. I wish the uni were as supportive when my dad died.

I imagine the thinking is that 5 days might be enough for some people.

I was told by my line manager to get signed off when my husband had a brain hemorrhage. I ended up being off for four months. When he died, I was given 10 days leave but actively 'encouraged' by my line manager to go to the GP and get signed off again, which was handy because it was two months before we could actually bury him due to waiting on a plot to become available at our local cemetery.

My friend, who works for the same company but has a different Line Manager, was only given two days off when her mum died.

I think it's pretty standard. I think I did take about that when my Dad died but less when my mum died - although that was during the pandemic so I was wfh quite a bit anyway.

Tbh, getting back to work helped me. I needed a few extra breaks and didn't get as much work done as I might have normally. but having something else to focus on for some of the time helped me.

I had 2 days off when my mum died, one the day after (then it was the weekend) and day of the funeral, frankly I preferred to be busy.
Not everyone is the same, so I think 5 as standard is good /appropriate, people can get signed off if they need more.

When my mum suddenly died in 1990 I got 2 days in public sector. Didn’t think about being signed off by a GP in those days. Five days now is fair.

My work told me the same when my dad died. But my manager told me to get signed off as I would get full pay that way,

We get 5 special leave days a year.

I got 2 days working for a bank, 30 years ago working for a bank. I took 3 and had to take a day's leave when my DF died. Apparently had it been nearer the end of thé year I could've had the day.
Very much depended on what team you were in. People i'd worked with in another team had a week.

It’s a bit ridiculous that people always take longer but five days is still officially standard.

I suspect its because once it turns to sick leave rather than compassionate there's different obligations on the employer and consequences for the employee ie counting toward their sickness record, reduction in pay dependent on sick leave policy etc.