Impact Of Divorce In The Workplace

Divorce rates continue to go up, around 50% of marriages will end in divorce. Divorce is something that can overlooked when assessing its impact of an employee’s performance at work. Before I went through my own divorce I had thought little or nothing about it and much like anyone else who has not been through divorce.  Divorce is one of the things you need to go through to understand it fully.

It is estimated that divorce costs the British economy up to £46 billion every year, and the Chamber of Commerce recently in which they emphasised the relationship between employee wellbeing and business productivity. So you can see that there is a need to understand divorce and break the stigma so that companies are equipped to help and that employees feel that they can speak to someone who understands.

Going through a divorce or any type of breakup is a highly emotional time, which could involve legal battles, house moves, no contact with children and financial issues to name a few. Which can be worse if it was not your choice to separate. All this stuff will affect employee performance at work both before the divorce and in many cases years after the divorce.

This is a huge issue for employers as someone going through a breakup could lose as much as 50% of his/her productivity and the effects could last up to 10 years afterwards.

Many could turn to unhealthy habits, like alcohol, drugs, meaningless sex. These things can be happening whilst they are showing up appearing normal at work.

Many of these employees will quit their jobs or they will possibly be sacked due to not performing well as they used to. This is especially true of men who are less reluctant to open up and speak of their hardships and look to cope in other ways.

Even today there is something taboo about talking about divorce and this is true for the workplace, colleagues don’t want to bring it up as its awkward and they may not even tell their employers and if they do there is often very little they can do support them to help them move forward.

Employers have often kept out of the whole issue. The individual going through divorce can feel isolated, financially and mentally drained, this is costing the company in terms of diminished productivity, absenteeism and possible expensive mistakes that could be made in their work.

In Study conducted by Rayden Solicitors in 2021 asking whether workplaces are set up to support  employees they found the following. The Full study can be found here The 2021 Divorce in the Workplace UK study | Rayden Solicitors

The top findings were:

• 57% did not feel they received the required support from their employers
• 79% stated that divorce or relationship breakdown had an impact on their ability to work.
• The majority of these – 60% – stated that it impacted their mental health in the workplace, causing anxiety, depression, or stress.
• For just under 1 in 10, it resulted in them leaving the company within the year post-divorce. For 1 in 50, this was due to being let go by the company within the year post-divorce.
• SME employees are 4 times more likely to leave the company within a year of going through a divorce than if working at a large company.
• Male employees in the UK are more likely to be affected – 93% stated that it impacted their ability to work.
• 42% state that their company could have provided more psychological and mental health support.
• 1 in 9 UK employees who have gone through divorce or relationship breakdown stated that work pressure hindered the relationship and contributed to the divorce.

It is clear that it is in the benefit for there to be more awareness around divorce in the workplace to help employees. HR departments can be trained  so that they can support employees which could include the services of a specialist divorce coach. As a coach I can provide training to HR and other leaders within companies. I also offer individual coaching to help them move through the overwhelm of divorce.

In addition to the emotional side and to help them get more clarity of their situation I can help with the practical side of divorce. This could include finding a suitable solicitor and other things such as childcare and benefits.

So much of divorce is uncertainty, and I am giving them certainty so that they are a more dedicated and productive employee they’re a more dedicated and loyal employee, because their employer had their back when they’ve gone through one of the most traumatic life events of their lives.