When Personal Issues Become a Workplace Problem

Over the last several years, we’ve seen greater integration of our work and personal lives than ever before… some would even go so far as to say it’s unprecedented.

It began a couple of decades ago, when innovations in telecommunications and mobile technology gave us the ability to be “online” no matter where we were. When our parents left the office, their work day was over, and they would only be contactable in the case of extreme emergencies… you’d have to turn up at their home and knock on the front door…

But, as early as the mid-1980s when I was a software developer at a bank in Sydney, I worked with some of the earliest technology that enabled remote connection to the bank’s systems via an analog landline.  

And, for at least the last 20 years, we’ve been able to work outside standard office hours quite easily – from wherever we happen to be. At first, this only affected the top tiers of management, but as technology improved, it worked its way down to the front line.

No wonder, then, that with work breaching the boundaries of our personal lives, that our personal lives would eventually permeate traditional workplace barriers as well.

In the past, it was considered unacceptable to bring personal issues into the workplace. It didn’t matter what was going on outside of work, you’d arrive each day with your game face on.

Your personal life could have been in cataclysmic meltdown, but you were still expected to turn up – level, composed, and ready to go!

These days, though, we’re encouraged to bring our whole selves to work.

This has brought some incredible benefits: we’re now able to openly talk about the things that we’re struggling with – like mental health problems, or struggles with addiction.

And it’s cast a spotlight on some societal issues that were considered taboo, but absolutely needed greater awareness – like suicide prevention and domestic violence.

In a relatively short space of time, we’ve moved from effectively insulating our personal lives from work, to now allowing our personal lives to dominate our work… fair enough! For many years, it was one-way traffic in the other direction.

Despite the obvious benefits, this has created a real dilemma for leaders. For most of us, we have enough trouble keeping our own shit together, let alone having to manage our team’s personal problems. 

Although a leader’s duty of care has expanded in the last 5 years, very few people are equipped to deal with the implications. It raises some really tricky questions… like:

• How do you cut people some slack for their personal issues without allowing that to lower the standard you’re setting for the team?
• How do you recognize a red flag, and what do you do if you spot one?
• How do you insulate other team members from the fallout of a single individual’s personal struggles?
• How do you know when to cut a break for someone who is going through difficult times, and when to demand that they step up?
• How do you know when someone is genuinely struggling, or just playing the system to their advantage?
• How do you know if someone is at their breaking point, or if they just need to be stretched to increase their resilience? and
• How do you support the people who are genuinely in trouble, without slipping into amateur psychologist mode?

It doesn’t matter what the size or makeup of your team is, these questions should always be in the back of your mind, as you try to ensure you give every individual the support they need – without compromising the high performance ethos.