Most HR departments have no process for this. That’s understandable: in a company of 150 employees it happens around six times a year, spread across every department, and each time it feels like a one-off.
It isn’t. The process is largely the same every time, and it can be prepared for in advance.
Phase 1: the first 48 hours
Check the contract first, not the wording. Before you respond, check whether §616 BGB is excluded in the employment contract and whether a works agreement or established company practice applies. A verbal commitment that contradicts the contract binds you, and every case that follows.
Reach out once, clearly and briefly. A call or message with three things in it: condolences, the concrete time off granted, and a named point of contact. No questions about what happened, no request to “get back to us when it suits.” At this stage, every open question is one more task for someone who is already overwhelmed.
Sort out cover without asking. The affected employee shouldn’t have to decide who takes over their work. Decide it and let them know.
Don’t do this: share the news across the team without asking who should know. This is the most common mistake, and the hardest one to undo.
Phase 2: weeks 1 to 6
This is where the real lever sits, and where most companies do nothing.
What the affected employee is actually doing during this time is, to a large extent, administration. Reporting the death to the registry office (Standesamt) has a three-working-day deadline under §28 PStG, and “working day” includes Saturday. Life insurers often require notification within 24 to 72 hours under their own policy terms. Disclaiming an inheritance must be declared within six weeks under §1944 BGB. The inheritance must be reported to the tax office within three months under §30 ErbStG. On top of that: banks, landlords, utility providers, telecoms, subscriptions, vehicle registration, pension insurance, health insurance.
Nearly all of these offices are only reachable on working days between nine and four. That is the reason this work falls inside working hours instead of the weekend.
What helps: flexibility in when work happens, not in how much of it there is. Someone who can schedule appointments without asking each time loses less time than someone who has to take half-days off.
What doesn’t help: an unstructured offer to talk. The need at this stage is mostly organisational.
Phase 3: if incapacity to work continues
If the loss leads to a medically certified incapacity to work, the usual rules apply: up to six weeks of continued pay under §3 EFZG, followed by sick pay (Krankengeld) through the health insurer.
Stay in contact, without applying pressure. An agreed rhythm, for example a short message every three weeks with no obligation to reply, keeps the connection without pushing. Losing contact is the strongest predictor that someone doesn’t come back.
Deliberately keep the position blocked. A stand-in for routine tasks makes sense, a permanent replacement doesn’t. Someone who returns to find their role has been given away leaves.
Further reading: Continued Pay, Sick Pay, and Employee Bereavement
Phase 4: the return to work
The most expensive and the worst-organised part.
Plan it, don’t wait for it. “Get in touch when you’re ready” is the most common phrasing in this situation, and the riskiest. It puts the decision on someone who isn’t in a position to make it.
A workable return includes:
- A scheduled conversation before the first day back.
- A phased increase in hours where appropriate, following the pattern of a step-by-step reintegration (stufenweise Wiedereingliederung).
- An understanding of what the team knows and what it doesn’t.
- A second check-in after four to six weeks, because that’s where relapses tend to occur.
Expect reduced capacity for months, and plan for it rather than noticing it as it happens. A loss still affects someone roughly ten months after their return to work.
What managers need
The process rarely fails in HR. It fails with the manager who improvises because they don’t know what they’re allowed to offer.
Three things to have ready before a case occurs:
- A one-page overview: what the employee is entitled to, who decides, who gets informed.
- Message templates for the first outreach, the team update, and the return-to-work conversation.
- A named contact in HR who can decide, rather than passing every question up the chain.
The five most common mistakes
- Making commitments before checking the contract. Creates precedents you can no longer control.
- Informing the team without asking first. Cannot be undone.
- Only planning for the first few days. Over 90 percent of the cost arises afterward.
- Losing contact during an extended incapacity to work.
- Leaving the return to work up to the affected employee. Nobody in that position can reliably judge alone when they’re ready.
Why the effort pays off
A death in an employee’s family costs a company around €10,000 on average, and around €37,800 for the loss of a partner or a child. A tenth of cases account for nearly 40 percent of the cost, and the largest single item within that is the risk that the person doesn’t come back.
A defined process costs you half a day of preparation, once. It works on exactly the group whose departure costs €43,069 on average.
The full calculation: What a Death in the Family Costs an Employer
What this means operationally
Every phase above is a coordination problem before it’s anything else: knowing which deadline applies, which office to contact, what the affected employee has already sorted out and what still needs doing. HR can hand over a one-page overview, but it can’t sit with the employee through the registry office, the banks, and the estate steps in Phase 2, and that’s exactly where the time actually goes.
That’s the part of this process an employer can hand off rather than absorb: see how Meolea supports employees through the weeks this process covers.
Sources
- §616 BGB, §1944 BGB
- §3 EFZG
- §28 PStG, reporting a death
- §30 ErbStG, reporting obligation
- Kompetenz Center Mitarbeiterbindung: turnover cost