Compassionate Leave Dilemma: Should We Offer Paid Time Off for a Family Loss?

Hello,

I am the HR of a website designing company. We have an employee who joined us in January of this year. Last week, we received news that his father passed away, and he had to go to his hometown. The question we have is whether this absence should be considered as paid leave or unpaid leave. Looking at the employee's excellent performance over the last two months, I believe this is a very genuine reason for him to take time off.

Kindly shed some light on this matter.

Regards,
Rupali Varma

Most of the IT companies have a bereavement leave policy. Employees will get 3 days of paid leave, provided that you have such a policy in your company.

Regards,

Dasa

To my knowledge, it is based on the company's policy. If the person's leave is manageable with some alternatives and he is in a different town, then the company may give paid leave based on his performance. It is purely based on the company's policy. These types of leaves we can't avoid.

Rupali,

Bereavement is bereavement. It has nothing to do with performance. Keep this in mind; you cannot distinguish based on performance. It is never desirable to have any such policy as Bereavement Leave Policy.

You have two options:
1. Sanction leave on loss of pay
2. Sanction advance leave. You can have a leave policy to sanction advance leave from the leave that will be credited next year. This must be applicable only for the death of father/mother/spouse. Otherwise, you will get requests for all deaths. This policy works. It must be sanctioned jointly by the Functional Head and HR Head.

Siva

And Rupali, I forgot to add one more thing. For female married employees, it applies to both the father-in-law and mother-in-law. This policy does not extend to male employees in India.

Siva