TOEIC Link Bereavement Leave and Compassionate Leave Request Vocabulary: The Notify-Request-Approve-Cover-Return Cluster for Part 4 and Part 7

Some leave is planned months ahead. Bereavement leave never is. An employee receives a phone call late at night, and by the next morning a manager, a team, and an HR department need to know that the person will be away — without asking for more detail than is kind or necessary. Companies handle this with a short policy: how many days are paid, which relatives are covered, whether extra unpaid time is possible, and what, if anything, must be shown afterward. TOEIC Link turns those rules into test items. An HR policy page lists three paid days for a close family member and one day for an extended family member (Part 7). A manager's voicemail tells a team that a colleague is on compassionate leave and explains who is covering her accounts (Part 4). A triple-passage set — a policy excerpt, a leave request, and an HR reply — asks why an employee's fifth day away was recorded as annual leave.

This article organizes the cluster by the way a family emergency becomes approved time off — notify, request, approve, cover, return. The request itself uses the same system and approval chain described in the employee leave request and paid time off cluster. The return to work, especially after a long absence, follows many of the steps in the sick leave and return-to-work note cluster. And when leave is needed to care for a seriously ill relative rather than after a death, the policy often points to the parental leave and family leave policy cluster.

Why bereavement leave vocabulary is overweighted

Reason 1 — the number of days depends on the relationship. Policies usually give more days for a spouse, parent, or child than for a cousin or friend. A question can turn on a single word in the request.

Reason 2 — two kinds of leave stack. Paid bereavement leave often runs out before the employee is ready to return, and the rest is taken as unpaid compassionate leave or annual leave. Part 7 enjoys asking which kind a particular day was.

Reason 3 — the language is indirect. Messages about a death are written gently — "due to a family matter," "following a loss in her family" — so the reader must infer what type of leave is involved.

The cluster, organized by the way an emergency becomes approved time off

Stage 1 — notify the manager

Verbs and collocations: notify your manager as soon as possible, call in before the start of your shift, leave a message with the team lead, inform HR of an absence, request that details be kept confidential.

Nouns: notification, immediate supervisor, absence line, family emergency, confidentiality.

Policies do not expect a form on the first day. They ask employees to notify their immediate supervisor as soon as reasonably possible, by phone, message, or the company's absence line. The employee does not need to give details; "a death in the family" or "a family emergency" is enough. Managers are asked to keep the information confidential and share with the team only that the colleague is away and who is covering. A Part 4 message from a manager therefore often sounds vague on purpose — "Maria will be out for the rest of the week for personal reasons" — and the question asks what the team should do, not why Maria is away.

Stage 2 — submit the leave request

Verbs and collocations: submit a bereavement leave request, select the leave type, state the relationship to the deceased, enter the dates of absence, submit within five working days of returning.

Nouns: bereavement leave, compassionate leave, leave type, immediate family, extended family, dates of absence.

The formal request can usually be entered after the fact, often within a set number of working days of returning. The employee chooses a leave type in the HR system and states the relationship — this is where the policy's definition of immediate family matters. A typical handbook lists spouse or partner, parent, child, sibling, and sometimes grandparent or parent-in-law as immediate family, with extended family receiving fewer days. Compassionate leave is often a broader category that also covers a relative's serious illness or other personal crises, and it may be unpaid. Part 7 questions frequently ask how many paid days an employee is entitled to after reading a request that mentions an aunt, a grandmother, or a stepfather.

Stage 3 — approve and document

Verbs and collocations: approve the request, grant additional days at the manager's discretion, request supporting documentation, accept a funeral notice as evidence, waive the documentation requirement.

Nouns: paid bereavement days, discretionary leave, supporting documentation, funeral notice, travel time.

Approval is usually straightforward, but three rules create test items. First, the policy may allow additional days at the manager's discretion, for example when the funeral is overseas and the employee needs travel time. Second, some companies ask for supporting documentation, such as a funeral notice or program, while others explicitly waive the requirement to avoid asking grieving staff for paperwork. Third, days beyond the paid entitlement are recorded as something else — unpaid leave or annual leave — and the employee may be asked which they prefer. A detail to watch: whether days are counted as working days, so that a weekend in the middle of the absence does not use up the entitlement.

Stage 4 — cover the work

Verbs and collocations: reassign urgent tasks, cover client calls, set an out-of-office reply, postpone a scheduled meeting, update the shared calendar.

Nouns: coverage plan, point of contact, out-of-office message, deadline extension, handover note.

Because the absence is sudden, there is no handover note. The manager builds a short coverage plan: who answers the colleague's client emails, which meetings are postponed, and which deadlines receive an extension. Often a coworker sets up an out-of-office message on the absent employee's account with a new point of contact. Part 4 announcements in this area use future and conditional forms — "Until Sam returns, please send purchase orders to Diane" — and ask who the listener should contact about a specific item.

Stage 5 — return to work

Verbs and collocations: return on a reduced schedule, arrange a phased return, work remotely for the first week, contact the employee assistance program, schedule a welcome-back conversation.

Nouns: phased return, flexible working arrangement, employee assistance program (EAP), counseling sessions, welcome-back meeting.

Coming back can be harder than leaving. Many policies offer a phased return — shorter days or a few days of remote work — agreed with the manager. HR materials usually mention the employee assistance program, a confidential service offering a set number of free counseling sessions. A brief welcome-back meeting lets the manager explain what changed during the absence without asking for personal details. In Part 7, an HR email may mention the EAP phone number and a question asks what the service provides, or whether the employee's manager will be told she used it (normally, no).

The paraphrase traps ETS builds on this cluster

Bereavement vs. compassionate. "Bereavement leave" follows a death. "Compassionate leave" may also cover serious illness. An option that assumes a death from the words "compassionate leave" alone can be a trap.

Paid days vs. total days away. "She was away for six working days" does not mean six paid bereavement days. Check the entitlement and look for what the remaining days were recorded as.

Working days vs. calendar days. "Up to three working days" starting on a Thursday can end on the following Monday. Options that end on Saturday ignore the counting rule.

Immediate vs. extended family. A grandparent is immediate family under some policies and extended family under others. The answer depends on the policy in the passage, not on general knowledge.

Before vs. after. Requests may be submitted after returning. An option saying the leave was denied because no form was filed on the first day usually contradicts the policy.

How to drill this cluster

Write out one case. A project coordinator's grandmother dies overseas on a Tuesday. The policy gives three paid working days for immediate family, one day for extended family, lists grandparents as extended family, allows up to two discretionary days for international travel, and records anything beyond that as unpaid leave unless annual leave is requested. She is away from Wednesday to the following Wednesday, does not want to use annual leave, and returns on a two-week phased schedule. List how the manager should be notified, how many days are paid and why, what the remaining days are recorded as, when the request form is due, who covers her supplier calls, and what the EAP offers. With that case solved, Part 7 sets on this topic become careful counting.

The one-sentence version

A family emergency becomes approved time off in a fixed order — the employee notifies the immediate supervisor without needing to give details, submits a bereavement or compassionate leave request stating the relationship within a set number of working days, receives paid days according to whether the relative is immediate or extended family plus any discretionary travel days, while the team follows a coverage plan, and returns on a phased schedule with access to the employee assistance program — and TOEIC Link tests whether you can count paid days correctly, and tell bereavement leave from the leave that follows it.