According to research by MetLife Employee Benefits, around a third have had to provide bereavement support to staff who have experienced the loss of a family member in the past two years.

Two thirds have no policy in place for supporting staff diagnosed with terminal illness.

In addition, 13% of HR departments said that they have had to deal with the death of an employee in the past two years.

MetLife research shows HR departments are generally sympathetic to supporting bereaved members of staff, with 92% saying they offer flexible working to staff while 24% provide access to bereavement helplines through their employee benefits provider and 13% offer face-to-face counselling.

There is an acceptance that more needs to be done — two out of five HR departments say they are looking at providing training for line managers to help them support staff while a third say they will consider introducing specialist support services.

MetLife notes that employees are entitled to a reasonable amount of time off in order to take any action which is necessary in consequence of the death of a dependant (spouse, child or parent and including someone who relies on the employee for the provision of care).

Employee benefits director Tom Gaynor said: ‘Companies clearly want to be supportive and sympathetic but it is surprising that so many do not have clear policies and procedures in place for bereavement in the workplace. HR departments recognise it is an issue but need support in addressing it.’

Bereavement and compassionate leave

The ‘time off for dependants’ legislation allows unpaid leave where a dependant has died. However, this can be of a short duration, or might not apply where the deceased is not a ‘dependant’.

Dependants can be a spouse, partner or civil partner, parent, child, person who lives in the sam household as the employee (but is not a lodger, employee or boarder), or person who reasonably relies on the employee for assistance.

Although the right to time off for dependants came into force on 15 December 1999 and sets out an employee’s right to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off work for urgent family reasons, many employers are still uncertain of their responsibilities.

Compassionate leave can cover a wide variety of circumstances, including:

• bereavement;
• serious illness or injury (to another person);
• marital problems and breakdown;
• family problems; and
• personal problems (ie home wrecked by flood or fire).

This article first appeared in Croner-I Human Resources https://app.croneri.co.uk/topics?product=3