Employers Offer Marriage Counseling For Employees
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article about employers who offer marriage training seminars and classes to their employees. The idea behind the classes is that married employees who are experiencing domestic difficulties are less productive than they would be if their relationships were not so problematic. A recent study has put the cost of this lost productivity at about $6 billion per year.
It seems that employees going through a divorce or other domestic problems have higher absenteeism rates, higher health care costs, increased stress, and increased distractions while at work.
The same study found that in the year following a divorce, employees lost an average of four (4) weeks of work.
If you own a business or professional practice, an employee who is going through domestic difficulties can place enormous stress on the business or practice. Missed work due to Court dates, interruptions to take calls from children, attorneys, and others associated with the situation, and the distractions of providing documents and information needed to deal with the problem all impact the successful operation of the business or practice.