I'll Give You Bereavement Leave

I got pulled into a discussion on an HR-focused email group. The discussion had to do with bereavement leave. The person posting the first message wanted some guidance on writing a bereavement leave policy that would prevent people from making up deaths in the family in order to skip work. As an HR person you might worry about your organization's culture just a tad if one of your concerns on the job was the concept of people lying about family members who had died. I would worry. This person didn't appear to be too worried, however.

I wrote this Bereavement Leave Policy to help the original poster out. What do you think? Did I leave anything out?

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE POLICY:

It is the Policy of The Company to allow each employee two days off to grieve upon the death of a parent, sibling, spouse, child or grandparent. Please note the following conditions which must be met in order to be granted these two (eight-hour) days off with pay (less applicable State and Federal taxes):

The family member who has died must be related to the employee in one of the manners expressed in the first paragraph of The Policy. The dead person may not be a step-relation. If the deceased individual is the child of an employee, he or she must be a child of the employee by birth or by legal adoption in one of the 50 U.S. States or Puerto Rico, Guam or the Marshall Islands. In the case of a child by birth, DNA samples from the expired person and the employee must be submitted to HR within seventy-two hours of the death. If the time/date of death are unknown, DNA samples must be submitted within 48 hours of the publication in the local newspaper of the stiff's death notice. If no death notice is submitted and published, no pay will be allowed and the employee will be terminated for improper death management and possible theft of time.

If the former relative of the employee (now certifiably dead with appropriate documentation) is the parent of an employee, all the points in Policy Note One (1) apply.

In order to take approved Bereavement Leave and be paid for two (eight-hour) days away from work, the employee must bring a dated and notarized copy of the Funeral Notice to HR and submit it along with a Bereavement Leave Excuse Form within ten (10) minutes of his or her regularly scheduled start time on the first day back at work following the Bereavement Leave. The funeral home from which the Funeral Notice is obtained must be licensed in the State in which it is located, proof of licensure to be provided by the employee with the Funeral Notice and State Licensing forms (notarized at a Federally insured Bank, Savings and Loan or Registered Financial Institution - no check-cashing service notarization will be recognized).

If the employee does not attend the funeral, no pay shall be allowed for the Bereavement Leave, however the employee may take the two (eight-hour) days off without pay and not be terminated for improper Death Management and possible Theft of Time as long as a biological or appropriate legal relationship to the previously alive person is shown to the satisfaction of HR.

If the previously living person on behalf of whose termination of life status the employee is requesting Bereavement Leave was, when living, the Grandparent of the employee, documentation of all births and deaths meeting the standard of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) by-laws shall be required to show the familial relationship between the ex-human being and the Company's employee.

These documents can include passports, obituaries in The New York Times or any other approved Rupert Murdoch publications only, genealogical charts purchased online or in person from Ancestry.com or the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, only to include registered congregations and entities associated with the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah US and not those associated with the Fundamentalist Mormon Church or any other religious or secular entites. Credit card receipts and an online or in-person receipt of purchase for genealogical records must be submitted to HR with the other necessary paperwork within four (4) hours of the return of the employee to work following the Bereavement Leave period.

If the person whose not-living condition effectuated the request for Bereavement Leave by an employee of the Company was (when alive) the Spouse of the employee, the Marriage License (original, no photocopies) must be submitted to HR in order for the employee to receive Bereavement Leave benefits.

Marriage licenses submitted in accordance with this Policy will not be returned to the employee, to minimize fraud. The employee may apply to receive a photocopy of the original Marriage License by entering the Dead Spouse Marriage License Quarterly Sweepstakes, one winner to be chosen per quarter or as deemed appropriate by the Bereavement Leave Policy Administration Committee.

Upon receipt of the necessary documents according to this Policy, HR will initiate a Bereavement Leave Authentication Investigation process, upon completion of which the employee will be paid for as many or few of the sixteen (16) hours of Bereavement Time as the HR representative deems appropriate.

Falsification of any document, failure to provide any document as requested and failure to show appropriate levels of visible grief post-expiration of the non-living party (evidenced by red eyes, sniffles, references to the affected family member, and evidence gathered through a series of interviews with the employee's co-workers, manager, and next-door neighbors on either side of his or her principal residence as recorded in the Company's Human Resources Information System) will result in immediate termination, the Company's refusal to provide an employment reference and a permanent injunction, filed in State and Municipal Courts, against future fraudulent family "death" claims. So there.