Eight out of 10 people would support paid bereavement leave. (pic: istockphoto.com/kzenon)
Employers need to put more compassion into the term ‘compassionate leave’ and give more support to their workers who are going through a bereavement, according to the Dying Matters Coalition, an alliance of 16,000 charities, hospices and care homes.
Its report Life after death: Six steps to improve support in bereavement – produced in conjunction with the National Bereavement Alliance the National Council for Palliative Care – concludes that bereaved people in Britain are being “failed by a lack of support in the workplace”.
Its survey of 4,000 workers found that half of people would leave their employer if they were not given sufficient support when a loved one died – and a third who had been bereaved in the last five years felt their employers had not treated them with compassion.
Eight out of 10 people polled would back a change in the law to offer paid bereavement leave to employees who had lost someone close to them – with 82% believing this leave would be beneficial to employers in the long term because the workers would feel supported through a difficult period. And nine out of 10 think employers should have a ‘compassionate employment policy’ offering support and flexible working to the bereaved. (more…)
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