February 23, 2026
Explore why the 3-day bereavement leave standard emerged from logistics rather than research, what studies reveal about its shortcomings, and how forward-thinking employers are responding.
The 3-day bereavement leave policy wasn't designed by grief counselors or psychologists. It emerged from union contracts in the mid-20th century, when the goal was simple: give workers enough time to attend a funeral and get back to their desks. That number stuck. Decades later, most companies still operate on this framework, despite everything we've learned about how grief actually works.
Grief experts now recommend a minimum of 20 days for close family losses. The average employer offers 5.6 days. This gap matters because employees who feel unsupported during loss often leave, and replacing them costs far more than extra time off ever would.
This post explains where the three-day standard came from, why it persists, and what the research says about what employees actually need.
The number three has no scientific basis. It showed up in labor negotiations during the 1950s and 1960s, when union contracts started including paid time off for family emergencies. Back then, most funerals happened within driving distance. Three days covered a day of travel each direction and one day for the service itself.
The policy addressed logistics. It was never intended to support healing, cognitive recovery, or the months of administrative work that follow a death. Employers weren't thinking about how long it takes someone to concentrate after losing a parent or spouse. They were thinking about attendance.
As companies benchmarked against each other, the number replicated. What started as a practical accommodation for funeral travel became the default standard bereavement leave across industries. HR teams inherited policies rather than designing them. The three-day standard calcified into something that feels deliberate but never was.
Inertia plays a major role. Updating a policy requires effort, approval, and sometimes budget justification. Keeping the status quo requires nothing.
There's also a framing problem. Many employers still think of bereavement leave as funeral leave. Under that logic, three days seems reasonable, maybe even generous. A service lasts a few hours. What else is there?
The problem with this framing is that it ignores everything that comes after. The administrative burden of death alone takes an average of 15 months to complete, according to Empathy's 2024 Cost of Dying Report. That includes closing bank accounts, handling insurance claims, managing estates, and sorting through belongings. Three days covers the first few phone calls, maybe.
Faith Holloway, a workplace bereavement expert who leads the Compassionate Employers Program at Hospice UK, put it this way in a webinar with Bereave: employers often jump to logistics before acknowledging what someone is going through. The instinct to solve problems kicks in, but grief isn't a problem with a solution. It's an experience that takes time.
No. The research on this is clear.
A peer-reviewed study published in The Transdisciplinary Journal of Management found that 66.1% of bereaved employees took leave beyond what their employer provided. Nearly half took an additional one to seven days within the first month. Another 16.5% needed eight or more extra days beyond their policy. These employees burned through sick time, vacation days, and sometimes unpaid leave because their bereavement policy ran out long before their grief did.
Performance suffers for months, not days. The same study found that only 42.5% of bereaved employees felt capable of performing their job duties in the first month following loss. More than half returned to work before they could actually do the work.
Grief affects cognition and physical health in ways that don't resolve quickly:
Expecting someone to function normally within three days of losing a spouse, parent, or child ignores what we know about how humans process loss.
Employees don't stop grieving when their policy expires. They start grieving at work instead. Researchers call this presenteeism: showing up physically while operating at reduced capacity. Presenteeism often costs employers more than absenteeism because it's harder to detect and harder to address.
According to Empathy's 2023 Cost of Dying Report, 76% of bereaved employees report their overall performance at work was harmed following a loss. The effects spread outward. Mistakes get made. Deadlines slip. Colleagues absorb extra work without understanding why.
Turnover follows inadequate support. A Bereave poll found that 51% of employees leave their jobs within 12 months of experiencing a close loss. Most of these departures are voluntary. Employees who feel unseen during their hardest moments remember how they were treated.
Leslie Barber, founder of Grief Warrior and a grief coach who has worked with organizations on bereavement training, explained it this way in a Bereave webinar: employees who feel supported through grief tend to return with greater motivation and commitment. Those who feel ignored or rushed often quietly start looking for a way out.
Extending bereavement leave costs money. That's the concern most HR teams raise first. But the math usually works in the opposite direction.
The downstream costs of inadequate support add up:
The cost of additional bereavement days is marginal compared to losing a trained employee who decides the company didn't care when it mattered.
Several large, publicly traded companies have moved well beyond the three-day standard:
These companies compete for the same talent everyone else does. They've calculated that comprehensive bereavement leave policies strengthen retention and culture more than they cost.
Bereavement support also matters for recruiting diverse talent. According to LeanIn and McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2023 report, 25% of women rank bereavement leave among their top employee benefits, placing it above parental leave and caregiver benefits. That number rises to 31-35% among Black women, women with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ women.
Leave duration matters, but it's not the only factor that shapes outcomes. How employers respond to grief often determines whether employees stay or go.
Sarah Hines, a workplace grief support expert with a background in HR and employee wellbeing, emphasized in a Bereave webinar that return-to-work plans should be personalized. Some employees need flexible hours. Others need lighter duties or temporary reassignment away from tasks that feel triggering. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works.
Support that makes a difference includes:
A company offering 20 days but ignoring the employee afterward may see worse outcomes than one offering 10 days with regular check-ins and genuine flexibility.
The 3-day bereavement leave standard made sense in a different era for a narrower purpose. It was designed to get people to funerals and back. It was never designed to support grief recovery.
Employers who want to retain talent and build cultures of genuine support need to examine policies that haven't evolved in decades. The evidence points toward more time, more flexibility, and more intentional support across the entire grief experience.
Updating bereavement leave doesn't require unlimited resources. It requires recognizing what the three-day standard actually represents: a minimum for logistics, not a framework for healing.
The three-day standard originated from union negotiations in the mid-20th century. It was designed to cover funeral attendance, not grief recovery. Over time, companies benchmarked against each other and the number became default practice, despite having no basis in research on grief or cognitive recovery.
No. Research shows that 66.1% of bereaved employees need additional time beyond what their employer provides. Only 42.5% feel capable of performing their job duties in the first month after a loss. Grief experts recommend a minimum of 20 days for close family members.
Companies like Meta, Adobe, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs offer 20 days for immediate family. Johnson & Johnson provides 30 days for the loss of a spouse, domestic partner, or child.
Most organizations offer 3-5 days for immediate family and 1 day for extended relatives. The average across employers is 5.6 days, according to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, while grief experts recommend a minimum of 20 days.
Employees experience presenteeism, meaning they show up but can't function at full capacity. They make more mistakes, miss deadlines, and often leave their jobs voluntarily. Research shows 51% of employees who experience a close loss leave their employer within 12 months.
Progressive employers now include domestic partners, close friends, and chosen family in their policies. Grief doesn't follow legal definitions of family, and employees may be closer to a friend or mentor than a biological relative they rarely see.
See how Bereave helps teams respond with clarity, consistency, and care.
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