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You’ll take on plenty of different roles as a business owner. Being in charge of a company means you are in charge of many different processes and people. It’s your job to keep the business together and ensure there are few issues.
Usually, it’s easy to look at things and understand if you’re responsible for them or not. Still, one or two things can be harder to deduce - such as employees with personal problems. As the head of a small business, is it your job to help employees with a personal crisis?
Some of you may say yes, while others say no. It’s a tricky topic, but we’ll go through some of the key talking points to understand where your responsibilities lie.
You are responsible for employee welfare
Walk into work and look around your office. You are responsible for every single person in there. It’s your job to ensure that your employees are okay and that they’re provided with excellent working conditions. With that in mind, doesn’t this mean you’re responsible if they have a personal crisis? If it’s impacting their work, shouldn’t you step in to see if you can help? It’s a very blurred line as you should technically support your employees and their mental health, but should you be concerned with something that’s none of your business?
Personal problems are personal for a reason
It’s rare that an employee will come to you with a personal problem. They stay personal for reason - people want some privacy. You will likely hear about it through the grapevine, or by making an educated guess based on an employee’s behaviour. So, is it your business to butt your head into someone’s private life? Surely you should just provide time off or let them know where they can get some support? This keeps you out of their business while still offering some help if they need it.
You’re not qualified to help
You should also take into account how qualified you are to help with a personal crisis. Be realistic, you don’t have a Bachelor of Counselling qualification, so how can you provide good help? What if you end up providing bad advice that just makes the situation worse? From this perspective, you could argue it’s better for your employees if you didn’t get involved!
Overall, we can come to a pretty solid conclusion based on these three talking points. First and foremost, you are responsible for the wellbeing of your employees at work. This means that anything at work that’s causing them problems needs to be taken care of by you. So, you technically don’t have to help them with a personal crisis. However, consider the impact that this employee is having on your business. They may be absent all the time, their head’s not in the game, and they’re slowing down progress. So, it might be worth taking it upon yourself to reach out and provide guidance. You don’t have to help directly, but you can point them in the direction of people or resources that can help them. This way, you can stay out of their personal business but still offer your assistance.