Funeral Leave

There are no laws requiring you to provide employees with funeral, or bereavement, leave. The employers that do provide the leave usually allow between two and four days per funeral.

Employers that don't provide funeral leave generally allow employees to use some other form of paid leave, such as sick days or vacation. As a practical matter, when a death occurs in an employee's immediate family it's unrealistic to expect him or her to work, and you'll be perceived as hardhearted if you don't grant some paid time off.

Written bereavement leave policy. If you decide to specifically offer funeral leave, as with all leaves, you may want to have a written policy that will explain the parameters of the program to employees.

A sample funeral leave policy is in the Business Tools area.