{"id":4311,"date":"2014-07-30T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planfoundations.com\/?p=4311"},"modified":"2014-07-30T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T11:00:00","slug":"what-should-you-do-when-employees-bring-personal-problems-to-work-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pioneerbusinessventures.com\/nsite\/what-should-you-do-when-employees-bring-personal-problems-to-work-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should You Do When Employees Bring Personal Problems to Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been managing people for years, but I continue to be conflicted about how to deal with employees who bring personal problems to work.\u00a0 According to recent research, by Bensinger, DuPont & Associates concludes that forty-seven percent of employees say that problems in their personal lives sometimes affect their work performance. We all know that plenty of personal problems coming through the office door every morning. Sometimes they are subtle; other times more obvious. The more obvious problems can manifest as a lack of concentration, tardiness, absenteeism, and\/or lower job performance\u2014just to name a few. What\u2019s a manager to do? On one hand, I want to support my team and help them focus more on their work. On the other hand, some employees, consciously or unconsciously, continue to seek support for personal problems in the workplace, which becomes distracting at work. Current management approaches are divided on this issue. The \u201cold school\u201d approach to managing employee problems is that all employees must leave their personal problems in the parking lot.\u00a0 This approach basically states, \u201cI am paying you to work, not to work on personal problems.\u201d It is an easier human-resources position to take: less time-consuming, definitely less interpersonal, and perhaps callous. \"\"<\/a> The opposite position goes something like, \u201cIf you are having a personal problem, take care of it, then get back to work.\u201d This works fine if the employee\u2019s problem can be solved quickly, but long-term problems typically require more problem-solving time. For example, personal problems like divorce, issues with raising children, addiction, or caring for an elderly parent do not solve themselves quickly and need to be managed over the long term. Neither approach seems to work well. \u00a0Some employees want to be treated like family in the workplace. More often, employees simply want to be supported beyond their job activities to make them more productive at work. This sounds reasonable. Perhaps we are approaching a middle ground. When an employee\u2019s personal problems affect job performance, the manager should focus on improving the job performance. We need to listen to our employees, but it is a dangerous and slippery slope for the manager to move his or her focus away from job performance and take on the role of a therapist, confidant, or counselor. However, when measurable, concrete job-performance metrics are not clearly affected and the problem manifests around emotions, attitudes, morale, or negativity with coworkers, the situation becomes more fragile. While I do not have all the answers for each individual case, I can provide some useful tips to help manage employees with problems based on my experiences and consulting observations. The following approaches have been useful to me:<\/p>\n