Your Employee's Divorce

If you have ever experienced a key employee go through a divorce, this article is for you.

The trauma experienced by a divorce often results in debilitating anxiety, overwhelming vulnerability and an inability to cope. In the workplace, this translates to a distracted employee with significantly diminished job performance and substantial time missed from work due to court appearances, single-parenting challenges and mental health issues. Employees will miss tens and sometimes hundreds of hours of work over the course of their divorce proceeding. The result is a significant negative impact on the productivity and morale of your enterprise.

What can an employer do? Simply stand by while your employee struggles and your organization is negatively impacted?

Some employers provide pre-paid legal service plans that provide access to attorneys at a reasonable cost while others will subsidize the cost of obtaining an attorney. But even with access to affordable counsel, divorces can take a year or more to resolve, thereby prolonging the economic and emotional struggles that are prevalent in divorce and, thus, prolonging poor job performance and diminished morale in the workplace.

Your answer may come from an unlikely source: Mediation.

This process has a number of advantages over the traditional divorce. It is significantly less expensive, allows the parties to craft their own agreements, and the duration of the process is measured in hours, not months or years. Success rates are extraordinarily high and the result is an employee who can return to the workplace without distraction.

From a business perspective, doesn’t it make sense to suggest mediation for your employees? As a matter of course, many businesses now offer referrals to mediators through their HR departments and some are now subsidizing the cost of mediation for their employees, finding that the cost to the employer is far less than the cost of an employee’s inefficiencies over long durations. Some employers pay a percentage of the mediation cost or, in the alternative, give an employee a fixed sum if they will attempt mediation, which would be reimbursable upon presenting documentation that mediation has been completed. Giving your employees access to an effective, time-limited process is a win-win scenario for both the employer and the employee.

If you are interested in exploring this topic, please take a look at the information provided in this website. The Frequently Asked Questions section may be especially helpful. Please don’t hesitate to give me a call for additional concerns you may have or to schedule a consultation.