‘Is your grandma your grandma?’: Chinese firm demands staffer seeking leave prove relation to visit critically ill relative in hometown
- An IT company employee was asked to prove her grandmother was ill when requesting leave to see her, then asked to prove it really was her relative
- The woman blew the whistle on social media causing a backlash against the company for its unfair workplace leave policies
An internet company in China is under fire for demanding an employee provide documentary evidence proving her grandmother is her actual grandmother.
The woman, surnamed Zhang, from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, eastern China, recently learned her grandmother was seriously ill after a cerebral haemorrhage.
She immediately booked a flight home and applied for leave from her employer, the Hangzhou Jiajie Internet Technology Company, before heading to the airport.
“At that time, the team leader told me to provide my grandma’s medical diagnosis document,” Zhang said. “After I gave them the document other people from the company asked me to certify that my grandma is really my grandma. I was already at the airport, I was anxious and outraged at the same time!” She wrote in a social media post about her employer’s behaviour, video portal Gongfu Video reported.
Zhang said she next contacted a human resources staffer about her leave application who asked her to provide photocopies of her identity card and household registration certificates to prove that she and her grandma were blood relatives.
