Bereavement Leave Policy meets Compassionate Leave
By Maureen Desmond ACC and Adam Calli, MSM, SHRM-SCP
Modern organizations spend a lot of time, energy, and money on their culture and culture related activities. They have come to understand, to varying degrees, that their culture can both attract and repel employees and candidates. They see changes in their workforce that have resulted from:
- the pandemic
- economic factors
- and the evolving demographic makeup.
As we wrote this article, we’d just entered the New Year – 2024! And 2024 is the year where the percentage of Generation Z workers will overtake the percentage of Baby Boomers in the workforce!
As you contemplate the proactive efforts you can make in updating your methods of operating and policies to address all these changes, we offer you another area to consider which many firms have overlooked.
Your bereavement policy.
This article, written by an expert in grief and loss in conjunction with an expert in Human Resources, presents an expanded view about this little thought of, but highly impactful policy. We tie it to the personal needs of your staff members, and to the needs of your business. The time of a policy that defines who’s covered and allows three days off are fast fading away, so let’s explore further together.
We know that nobody grieves the same way. It manifests itself differently, even within a family.
Culture you have & culture you want
The words in your policy send a larger culture message than just “you get 4, 14, or 40 days off” or that it covers kids, dads, moms, and grandmas. The flexibility and the duration and even the frequency all matter. For example, traditional policies speak to a certain number of days off being taken shortly after the passing of a person. But some cultures have subsequent ceremonies in memory of the person a year later! Would your policy allow for that? Maybe you say yes, but does the policy explicitly state that? What if someone lost a loved one, and then the person’s birthday comes and it’s your employee’s first time NOT celebrating the day? Perhaps a day of “bereavement leave” might be necessary.
Since the pandemic many organizations have increased their focus on the mental well-being of their staff members. And as we discuss shifting our thinking, instead of thinking of it as bereavement leave (or compassionate leave as we’re contemplating renaming it) you should just think of it as another more powerful example of mental health leave. Think about the first wedding anniversary after a passing? Or the first anniversary of the passing. These are often likely to be triggers requiring a new and more thoughtful approach to support.
These days may be invisible to you or us, but that’s very much not the case for your employee.
As you consider policy changes, these three questions can help you identify the right approach:
- Is it right for the employee?
- Is it right for the employer?
- Is it the right thing to do?
This may not come up nearly as often as some other issues, like a work from home policy, but when something in this realm occurs, it’s going to have an outsized impact on the person than a work from home policy would!
Ready to revisit your policy? Not only can we help you with modernizing your document, but we can also assist with dealing with other very real aspects of loss, not only for helping a member of your workforce who experiences a loss, but should you ever lose a member of your workforce. The scope of grief and the fact everyone handles it differently means your need to assist your workforce will be very different as well. We’ve even assisted firms with dealing with the loss of an employee before the loss, when a staff member was afflicted with a terminal illness. And then honoring the lost employee afterwards, can be a heart-moving way to assist your staff with their grieving process.
If you or someone you know is dealing with any of these situations, we welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can help you in a compassionate, yet business centered way.
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Maureen Desmond is Founder and CEO of MDesmond Coaching and Consulting, a niche business navigating companies and their people through change and loss. Prior to this, she spent nearly 30 years in executive sales leadership roles at some of the largest media/sales organizations. Maureen understands how change and loss affect people at a profound level. Maureen was both the leader supporting her direct reports through their losses, and the employee experiencing her own losses, both within her immediate family as well as her cancer diagnosis. Understanding the impact of ‘being in grief’ and returning to work, led her to navigating companies through these sensitive times. She knows how support impacts how employees respond. And those small changes enhance team culture, productivity, and business growth. Visit https://navigatingchangeandloss.com for more information or reach her at md@mdesmondcoaching.com.
Adam Calli has been an HR practitioner for nearly 25 years, the past nine of which has been as Founder of his own consulting firm, Arc Human Capital, LLC. In that time, he supported blue and white-collar organizations in privately held and publicly traded companies with multi-site/multi-state operations. With this extensive practical experience married with the educational background of a Masters in Management from The Catholic University, and a Senior Certified Professional (SCP) certification from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) he is well suited to support any organization looking to update its approach to supporting the modern workforce. Visit https://archumancapital.com for more information or reach him at adam@archumancapital.com.
