Following global HR practice, local companies too have decided to grant bereavement leave. Some 90% of enterprises in the US allow employees to stay away from work after the loss of a loved one. In most cases, employees are given three days off with pay, a few companies even five days, while some grant additional time off without pay.



IT companies in India are in the forefront of adopting this HR practice, which in the Indian context finds great resonance with employees.



TCS already has bereavement leave facility for employees on a global basis. “It’s not just a day, we allow our employees to take adequate leave to handle the trauma in the event of the death of an immediate family member. Case to case, the number of days of leave required by the employees vary, it could be many days, up to five days or more. This is given in addition to the existing, scheduled leave quota,’’ said a TCS spokesperson.



Last month, Infosys Technologies introduced bereavement leave that allows its employees to take off for a day, on the demise of their spouse, parent, sibling or children.



“It is a one-day additional leave facility given to employees who suffer the loss of any immediate family member . Many global companies already have such leave facilities ,’’ said T V Mohandas Pai, head, education, training and HR, Infosys. Some Infosys employees are reportedly not happy with the one-day scheme and asking for at least three days.



Many MNCs including Cisco (4 days) and Adobe (multiple days) already offer such leave in India. In most cases, companies follow a narrow definition of who a close family member is and only if one of the following—spouse, child, parent, grandparent, brother, sister—dies can an employee be considered for time off with pay.



“Such policies makes more sense in the Indian context where death-related rituals , religious practices and formalities are very time-consuming and take several days to complete,” said a senior employee at a tech firm.

Post-death issues include arranging a funeral or memorial service and burial, dealing with personal belongings, property and settling of wills. When a family member dies, in addition to coping with the loss, the family left behind has to deal with many of these issues.