Compassionate Leave: How employers can support staff during difficult times

Employees facing the worst of times deserve the best care and understanding. Having a comprehensive and kind Compassionate Leave Policy is essential to help ensure this needed support following emergencies or bereavements.

What is Compassionate Leave?

Simply put, Compassionate Leave is an unplanned time off work, to be granted following a serious personal emergency or bereavement. It should be a time for employees to grieve the loss of a loved one, including pregnancy loss, or attend to urgent personal matters requiring immediate attention, such as a medical or family crisis. 

Bereavement causes nearly two million working people intense grief each year. One in five women in the UK experience a miscarriage throughout their lifetime according to UK Government research. Increases in incidents of extreme weather means facing unknown risks to our homes. Life’s difficulties are unpredictable; guaranteeing unplanned time off for personal emergencies goes a long way to alleviating further stress and worry.

Responding with compassion to employees in difficulty is vital. Offering grief support to those who find themselves hit with loss – expected or sudden – demonstrates an organisation’s commitment to people mattering. 

What does UK employment law say?

Compassionate leave is not a defined statutory entitlement in UK law. Instead, specific rights sit underneath it. Under current legislation, the only bereavement leave employees are eligible for are: 

• Parental Bereavement Leave - typically unpaid; up to two weeks where a child under 18 dies or a stillbirth is experienced after 24 weeks, though future reforms are expected as of writing in February 2026.
• Time off for dependants - typically unpaid; for immediate action only.
• Neonatal Care Leave - in force from April 2025, subject to eligibility.

As an example, employees have the right to time off for a funeral of a dependant (a spouse, child, parent or person living in the same household as defined in ERA 1999). 

It is up to employers’ discretion if – and how – they offer any further compassionate care or leave. 

This is set to change in 2027 with the Employment Rights Act (ERA) 2025, at which point Bereavement Leave becomes a statutory “day one unpaid right to protected time off for employees to grieve the loss of a loved one, including pregnancy loss”. This most likely will mean that everyone will be eligible for it from their first day of employment. Leave should be taken for a minimum one week, and the bereaved person is likely to have at least 56 days in which to take the leave. New protections against redundancy and dismissal are also expected to follow. 

UK legislation will seek to set out further recommendations for minimum statutory requirements, such as what is a ‘reasonable’ amount of leave to offer and what is meant by a ‘dependant’, and so on. 

Employer responsibilities and best practice

Support and information are fundamental in a crisis. Employees need to know where they stand, what they’re entitled to and how to communicate in an emergency – but crucially that leadership cares and will support them. A clear, regularly reviewed Compassionate Leave Policy helps employees quickly understand and appropriately communicate, able to more fully attend to the emergency at hand. 

Developing an understanding and supportive best practice for Compassionate Leave include benefits employee morale (in both the short and long term), greater staff retention (as people feel valued), and increased organisational trust (which benefits everyone). 

As with all policies, it should dovetail with unique organisational needs. There are several things to consider when building your organisation’s version, such as cultural and religious customs, parity amongst all parts of your team, and the safeguarding of sensitive information. 

Acas, an organisation aimed at helping improve organisations and working life, offers helpful HR policy templates, covering definitions, reporting procedures and much more. 

How to design a Compassionate Leave policy

• Start with what’s statutory – including Parental Bereavement Leave, including in the case of still birth or miscarriage. Be sure to stay up to date with any legislation changes that will have an impact! 
• Determine if the leave will be paid or unpaid; perhaps it will be taken as sick leave or as part of holiday entitlement.  
• Be clear on what circumstances this policy will cover, including definitions. It’s helpful to include descriptions of the types of events covered: the loss of a family member, a medical emergency of a non-dependant relative or friend, flooding at home… 
• Outline the consequences of making false requests. This helps protect the policy from being abused. 
• Establish how the policy will be reviewed. Proactive or reactive – this should not be a stagnant organisational conversation.
• Recognise that, in times of crisis, people’s capacity is often diminished. Make the process as clear and straightforward as you can.
• Acknowledge the reality being faced by your employee. Leadership’s responsibility in this time is to be supportive, understanding and care for the humans in their teams.

The employee perspective – why it matters 

Compassionate Leave is never something anyone wants to use. An employee will only make use of this when something terrible has happened in their lives. At a time of significant difficulty and big emotions, it’s important that the response to their crisis from across their workplace is one of compassion and support. 

As an example, employers could take a lead on planning cover for the affected employee’s tasks and responsibilities whilst absent, to ensure that employees can fully step away and focus their energies where needed elsewhere.  

How to communicate compassionately 

“Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.” We have all needed compassion at some point, and it’s helpful to reflect on how you would wish to be spoken to if the emergency was yours. 

Line managers play a key role in ensuring team members are communicated with compassionately. Hopefully the relationship is already one of trust, understanding and respect; continuing to care for an employee in times of difficulty has the same starting point.  

In crisis, it’s not uncommon to experience decision fatigue or paralysis. Adjust expectations of the impacted party – but seek to include them in this. No one likes feeling they’re having agency taken away from them. 

Think about the physical setting of your conversation; many topics which qualify for Compassionate Leave are sensitive and will require privacy.  

It can be helpful to acknowledge and express the emotions present, such as sadness, worry, anxiety or grief. Even affirming your support of the employee can go a long way to reinforcing what you’re able to offer. Keep any offers of further help realistic. 

We have explored how you can respond compassionately throughout your communications and policies in the case of baby loss which will give you an understanding of this in practice.

Building a compassionate workplace culture

Policies are only part of the picture. Putting them into action and investing in overall organisational culture will be what makes a workplace compassionate. This is something everyone is responsible for and can contribute to in meaningful ways. 

Leadership should be the drivers of this: setting tone, encouraging and accommodating peer support, communicating regularly and ensuring workplaces strive to be environments where people matter. A good resource to take inspiration from is the NHS L.O.T.U.S Compassionate Leadership Framework and Toolkit.  

A compassionate workplace is built with trust, valuing team members, resourcing managers and modelling authentic care. A culture of compassion goes beyond bereavement and emergency needs; it’s one where thoughtful attention is given to wellbeing, return-to-work or absence management.  

Next steps

There are an abundance of tools, reflections and templates available to any organisation looking to build a Compassionate Leave Policy. It is important to consider where your organisational culture and values as you build it. The next step would be to review your policy around Compassion Leave and ensure training has been delivered to any of your people managers.

Compassionate Leave is in the group of have-it-and-hope-to-not-need-it policies. Determining how to build and update it is an essential element of organisational health. Getting it right will help employees feel cared for and supported.