Bereavement pay...Real or Fake

Nevada

Our handbook states that you will receive 1 bereavement day for certain family members. What if it's questionable? This person is known to lie, take more time off than anyone else and always is the first one to use up all of her sick, vacation, personal day etc. She is always calling in sick and has one excuse after the other for not being here. The day she wanted off was the day after our Christmas Party that she attended. Also, there was no funeral to go to, she said her Grandma's memorial was going to be in a couple of months and she was so stressed and upset she needed the day off. This was her Grandma that died and she mentioned that she has 3 Grandma's and Grandpa's which means she will be taking 5 more bereavement days in the future. Who knows if it's true. How can we protect ourselves with this type of fraud?
Thank you!

ray a

Typically, our ee's use bereavement to attend the funeral or memorial service or take care of legal matters. Our policy states that the bereavement time is take care of personal matters related to the death. It may sound harsh, but I would recommend you give her the bereavement day at the time of the memorial service - I'm sure she will ask for that day off, too. This day off she took now, make her use vacation or personal time, or if not PTO is available, make it an unpaid day off.

Whatever

I agree with Ray A.
I would add, however, that if her attendance is so terrible why hasn't she been disciplined (written warning to suspension). If she is known to lie, why is it tolerated?
Finally,if you want to prevent "fraud", have ALL employees show up with a letter from the funeral home proving they attended the funeral or memorial service.

Margaret Morford

I agree with the posts above and would add that our policy permitted the company to ask for proof in the form of a death notice, funeral program, etc. When we had a suspicion, we asked for proof. I had one man scream at me that his brother had just died and call me a hard-hearted ***** and stomp out of my office. He returned 10 minutes later to confess he'd made the whole thing up.

I also had an empoyee come tell me her father had died, that she hated him and wouldn't go to the funeral "even to spit on his grave," but she wanted the three bereavement days off anyway. We said no...no personal business, no legal duties, no funeral service, no bereavement leave. If that makes me a hard-hearted *****, then so be it.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Balloonman

Margaret you bit*h! People who have a genuine loss understand.......and will provide the proof.....as you and I know. :-) Have a great weekend.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

Dutch2

We too state in our policy that bereavement pay is to "attend the funeral" of a family member and we go so far as to spell out which family members, basically one limb of the family tree. We allow up to three days off with pay if travel time is required. In my previous life I had someone take one day to attend a family members funeral and then a few months later he really got upset because I would not allow him to take the "other two days that were due him" to go fishing. We also suspected someone was being less than honest about Granny passing on, so I looked up Grannys phone number and called on the pretense of offering our condolences to the family and Granny just happened to answer the phone. She was not very happy that her death had been reported to us. When we have had reason to suspect our leg was being pulled; I have called florist shops to find out which funeral home they were using or just to send flowers to a certain person only to find out that they had no record of the funeral. Folks and their excuses for missing work.... ya just gotta luv 'em.
Have a great weekend,
Dutch2

Whatever

Our policy includes "spouse, not estranged". We had an employee who wanted time off to attend her husband's funeral. Problem was, the obituary and newspaper article mentioned his fiancee. She had brought in the court papers showing the legally separated pending divorce. Finally, she was wearing an engagement ring from her fiancee. She felt she should get the time off because "she still loved him and didn't want the divorce." I made her unhappier by denying the request.

Hatchetman

If your bereavement leave policy doens't spcify what the time off may be used for in relation to the relative's death, then leave it up to the employee. If the employee wants to use the one day now that's what is permitted for in your policy (if it has no other conditions). Just make sure that if and when the emplyee claims that the memorial service is on the partiuclar day that he or she wants bereavement leave for that, that the emplyee knows that one day she os now using won't be available.

Regarding verficaiton, you should always require for any employee an obituary notice, or death certificate or some other form of documentation from a feliatable source (e.g., perhaps a letter from the local clergyman stating the death has occurred and when the memorial service will be).

Once you have those two concepts in plac3e in your police and in the minds of the emplyees it won't be so difficult to require it in specific situations knowing that a death has occurred.

Don D

I've always felt it rather macabre and rude to ask someone to bring in proof of a dead body. However, I also know that if you don't do this, sometimes you will be duped.

Rockie

Having just attended a funeral on Friday where there were more than 500 people in attendance, I could only imagine what the funeral home would say if only a portion of those folks asked for a "funeral excuse".

In this case, I would trust people until they gave me a reason not to. If someone needs a day off bad enough to fake a relative's death, I say shame on them!

LindaS

If you question the validity of her grandmother's passing, there are any number of documents she can provide to verify the passing. I have had employees provide the obituary from the local newspaper, a copy of the death certificate, a slip from the funeral home verifying that they attended the funeral, or one of the handouts from the funeral home that gives the name of the person who passed away. I agree with Don that it can be macbre to ask this but, as with anything, policies and practices such as this are put in place to address the "problem" employee.

Pork

Additionally, we do not pay people for someone's dying. The pay is to make up for the loss opportunity to earn an income, "hours not worked" to go to the funeral. we have an employee who will attend her grandfather's funeral on Wed this week, she will work until 11:00AM and be at the funeral, all afternoon. We will pay her for the normal 3 hours that she will miss an opportunity to work. Initially, she wanted to be off three days Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for a funeral in this community.

PORK, they will serve BBQ pork on the church grounds, while celebrating their loss, who has gone on to a better place last week, all most a week ago!

moneyman

It is unfortunate that some rules have to be put into place for the few that abuse. My former company put the proof requirement into place, even when there was no evidence of anyone abusing. That is what I call cold. It is a smaller company of about 50-60 over 2 locations and I can tell you that if one of my department people came to me to tell me that they had a funeral of a family member, I would know the truth of it (like I said, small company, my department was 3 people the largest 6). If it was local, I would be there. It seems ridiculous to put something like into place when there was no prior troubles. Granted, the company was growing and with a lot of new people (not the staff that has already been around anywhere from 5-15 years), then perhaps there was a potential. But I think it was just a policy happy (power hungry) new HR manager showing some muscles.

Christine M

The HR department here has an on-line membership to a local paper. Our policy is that the employee lets us know the name of their relative and we require them to provide obituary back-up [b]only[/b] if we are not able to get one from the local paper.

The obituaries, of course, do not always mention the employee, but we don't normally look into it any further.

Prior to the online membership with the paper, we had a lot of comments about "heartless HR". Now that they actually know we try first, employees are much more positive when asked to provide backup.

We look at it as a small service for our "customers."

HR in Okla

Does anyone have a sample bereavement policy they would share? We have one, but I have proposed changing it. Right now we give up to 3 days off for the death of almost any relative or person living in the home. We don't specify bringing any proof. With 240 employees, there is potential for abuse, but I don't really think we've had any. Most of those who have used it have volunteered a funeral program or obituary.

When I mentioned to another manager who is usually tougher than I am that I wanted to tighten up the policy, even she said that you can't always tell about people's true relationships based on their spot on the family tree. For example, I had a second cousin that I was closer to than my mother!

Margaret Morford

I have one that I'll send you if you'll e-mail me.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

rad

That is a very good point, and one that companies should take into consideration when allowing time off. I can understand maybe not paying for every family member but an employee should be allowed to be there when an aunt, uncle, cousin, etc dies. I am as close to my cousins as I am to my siblings.

When my sister's grandmother died (not my grandmother, not a step either) I explained to my boss that I needed to be there to support my sister, not because I was feeling a loss. I don't have grandparents coming out of the woodwork, and I only needed a day, pay me or not. She appreciated my honesty and paid me for 2.

jrzgrl

Our policy allows for the first branch of the family tree, as well. If it is someone such as a cousin they are closer to than their mother, they are free to use their personal or vacation days.

mushroomHR

I agree with jrzgrl. We allow three days for mother, father, present spouse, children, brother, sister; one day is given for mother-/father-in law, brother-/sister-in law, grandchild, stepchild or the employee's grandparents. If the employee wishes to attend the funeral of any other family member they are free to use vacation/personal time. I know some of our employees have large families and we just can't afford to give them time off for every member who passes away. We also require proof of relationship and proof of attendance at the fuenral. We also have quite a few employees who have immediate family members in foreign countries. In the event of their death we allow the employee one day with pay to deal with their grief.