Although not required under federal or state laws, some national companies in the United States are now giving days off to employees who lose pets. With this, mourning pet owners are given some time to grieve without worrying about work.
CBS Miami reported that VM Ware, a cloud and virtualization software company, is now allowing its employees to take flexible days off to spend some time grieving for the loss of a pet cat or dog. Maxwell Health, a human resource and benefits technology firm, is also implementing the same scheme of providing flexible pet bereavement days for mourning workers.
Moreover, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, a hotel and restaurant company that operates in over 30 cities across the US, is also allowing its managers to grant a maximum of three days to grieving pet owners who wanted to take time off from work. Trupanion, a pet insurance company, is also giving one paid pet bereavement day to employees who lose a pet.
"We allow people to actually do that grieving process and just, just be able to heal," said Dani Kahn, a pet director of Trupanion. "I think you need closure when you lose a pet, and it's important to have the time to do that."
Erica Lee, a pet owner, shared that she and her son were devastated when they lost their pet named Chief. She said that her employer was generous enough to give her a day to take off to regroup and help her son cope up with the pain of losing a pet.
"Being able to stay home with him and grieve with him was invaluable. It was so, so important to me," Lee expressed. "This should absolutely be the norm for many businesses if not all."
According to a report by the Daily Mail, a study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii in 2009, found that 30 percent of pet owners may need at least six months to mourn for the loss of their beloved companion. One-third of the respondents shared that after the death of their pet, they experienced feelings of sadness and grief for six months or longer.
