Bereavement Leave….for Pets?

I’m not sure if I should be writing this now because the emotions are still very raw. But here goes.

I saw an advert for a beautiful tortoiseshell kitten. It was 2010 I was looking for my very first pet. I contacted the lady and it wasn’t long before I was at her house to pick up the newest member of the family. The kitten had been called Priti - she was totally gorgeous, so we decided to keep her name.

She was from a litter of 10! I decided that as I would be out at work I should make sure she had a companion. There was an almost black cat available, and I thought she was one that wouldn’t be picked by people so I said we would take her too.

Turns out she was a Dark Tortie with a gorgeous ginger paw. She wasn’t named by me but she was called Kazmaier, after Bill Kazmaier from World’s Strongest Man back in the day (don’t ask!).

This was 15 years ago. I was living in a first floor maisonette. I was a HR Advisor at the time - and these 2 kittens kept me company whilst I wrote my dissertation for my masters degree.

Looking back it feels like 15 years have gone in the blink of an eye. But in that time I have lived in 5 different houses, I got my masters degree, I’ve been married and divorced and had a child. It’s been a lot. People suggested that I should rehome the cats at various points in the last 15 years, but I never did. They were mine and they weren’t going anywhere.

Well, today I made the very difficult decision to send Kazmaier over the rainbow bridge. She was in pain, starting to suffer and I knew it would be selfish to have her here with me for any longer.

I have cried so much my eyes sting. There is a Kazmaier shaped hole in our lives and I’m not sure how we will fill it.

What has this got to do with HR?

I think it raises an interesting question about how we support our employees. There isn’t anything in employment law that says employees should be given paid leave when going through something like this, but when I have spoken to people in the ELEVATE Hub pretty much everyone said they would give an employee paid time off to take their pet to the vets.

Someone made a good point that we all have different relationships with our pets and also handle loss and grief in different ways.

Some people had Pet Bereavement policies, whilst others just had a flexible approach and would talk to the employee about what they needed.

How you treat people in times like this will really stay with them. It can make them even more loyal, or it can push them to look for another job. That might sound extreme but it’s very true.

How would you deal with a situation like this?