Anyone know about bereavement issues, time off etc?

[Confuzzeled]

ME and DH own a small business, one of our full time salaried staff is going through a nightmare with his partner. She has terminal cancer and the poor guy is barely able to function at work. We want to do what ever we can for him, he's only working 4 days a week and I know he'll need more time off soon.

We've asked our accountant to give us the official info but I wondered if anyone knows how we can get him as much time off as possible. The thing is, we are a small company and money is super tight, I know we'll get a small amount from the government but I don't know how much.

Anyone been through this?

I can't give you any free advice I'm afraid, as you are an employer, but I will just say please check extremely carefully whatever the source is that's making you think the government will give you money if you decide to give (not 'get') one of your employees time off.

Sorry I can't help more but as you are an employer I can't advise you for free unfortunately.

Just to second what Flowery said, as an employer you would be 'giving' the time off, not getting it for your employer. There are two issues here : time and money.

For time, you can give whatever time off you choose. It's really up to you.

In terms of pay, other than very set statutory rights - such as statutory maternity pay - the government does not normally pick up any or all of the tab for payments to employees who are off work, and even then there are very strict parameters. I think, if you want to be kind to this guy, unfortunately it's likely to have to come out of your own pocket.

I did a bit more research and still waiting to hear from the accountants but basically we won't get any assistance. It turns out we need insurance to cover any staff issues but I don't think we're covered. It really sucks as we don't even have enough to pay ourselves properly and we really want to help our employee. He's going through hell and our business is struggling, I don't want him to loose his dp and then his job because we can't keep the business going any longer.

Sorry, just needed a moan, thanks for the advice.