The stress of balancing the books has perhaps naturally meant an increase in bosses unable to avoid taking the strain of work home with them.
Equally, though, domestic unrest has fed back to the office with damaging effect.
It would be wrong to suggest that the maelstrom that has ripped through the world’s money markets has solely been to blame for relationships ending. Break-ups happen in times of both boom and bust.
However, a worrying pattern has emerged in more than 1,500 divorces handled by myself and my colleagues at Pannone over the last two years, illustrating the impact that divorce has on the workplace.
We have seen many more cases in which clients allege that their bosses have been unsympathetic to their fractured domestic circumstances. They have common complaints about being refused time to attend legal meetings or having requests to shape working patterns around child care turned down. In some cases, even senior workers have been disciplined because of their inability to juggle job and a disintegrating home life.
There isn’t a single, simple reason for what we have seen. Instead, there seems to be a coming together of different factors.
The recession has placed extraordinary pressures on bosses merely to keep their businesses going. Many, including some clients who are successful entrepreneurs, expect staff to play a full part in trying to keep their companies trading through tough times.
While keen to be caring employers, they acknowledge the potential problems presented by not having workers fully focused on their jobs because of bother at home and how colleagues can become irritated by repeatedly being asked to do extra work in order to cover absences and altered shifts.
The very high proportion of a dwindling number of UK weddings ending in divorce also shows the frequency of couples concluding their marriages are doomed, sometimes needing only the spectre of job insecurity to fall apart completely.
The pressures seem to have their greatest impact on small and medium-sized companies, which might not be large enough to have a team of in-house HR staff on hand able to offer the right advice.
Domestic disputes have been matched for bitterness by spats in the office or factory resulting in work for employment lawyers as well as those handling a divorce. Such disagreements can also mean the loss of valuable staff, further damaging the prospects of a business to cope with external economic pressures.
Bosses can sometimes fail to follow rules governing their need to support staff, including those going through the trauma of a divorce. Often, without specialist HR guidance, they have difficulty understanding how to weigh the impact of trouble at home with someone’s continued professional capabilities. Equally, though, managers complain that some employees use marital strife as an excuse for not applying themselves at work.
In a situation where such frictions are magnified by recession, the obligations of both sides can become blurred, often with damaging consequences.
There is, however, one important and very much more positive lesson from Pannone’s recent experience. We have seen how companies have actually benefitted by being supportive of staff during divorce. More than providing a form of sanctuary from the distress of dissolving one’s marriage, clients we have acted on behalf of have been eager to to underline their commitment to bosses who stood by them when they need help.
One could say that such a strong relationship between employer and employee amounts to a marriage made in heaven.
Vicki McLynn is a senior associate at Pannone solicitors
