When an Employee Suffers Bereavement While on Annual Leave
About the Author:
Paul Wilton (editor)
CA with degrees in commerce, accounting and information technology. Paul worked overseas in the “Big 4” accounting firms and served as a director at Audit New Zealand before setting up his own consultancy. Author of A-Z of New Zealand Business Law, Paul has over 20 years of experience as a business owner and consultant. He joined FBA in 2004 and is totally committed to providing excellence in quality and value to our subscribers.
In these circumstances, the employer must allow the employee to convert the annual leave to bereavement leave if the employee wishes to do so (Section 37 of the Holidays Act 2003).
For the bereavement of a close family member (spouse, parent, child, brother/sister, grandparent, grandchild or spouse's parent), up to three days of annual leave will be converted to annual leave and one day for the death of any other person if the employer accepts that the employee has suffered a bereavement.
Note that bereavement leave does not need to be taken as three consecutive days, nor does it need to take place at the time of the death. For example, the employee may choose to take one day off following the death, another day a week later for the funeral and another day one year later for the unveiling of the tombstone.
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