An employee’s negative home environment does not stay at home when the employee reports to work. On the contrary, everything that happens at home is brought to work and it reflects on the employee’s performance. The different aspects of an employee’s life are interconnected and cannot be compartmentalized. Therefore, an employee cannot mentally separate incidences that take place at home when they get to the workplace. One of the things that could be happening in your employee’s home is domestic abuse/violence, also known as intimate partner abuse. While it is not the responsibility of the employer to provide a safe shelter or psychological assistance to an employee facing domestic violence at home, the workplace can be a platform through which an employee gets the much-needed help and support required by a victim of domestic violence.
Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviour aimed at gaining power and control over a spouse, partner or close family member. This behaviour threatens, intimidates, frightens, terrorizes, manipulates, hurts, humiliates and injures the victim. This behaviour includes psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse and spiritual abuse.
Employees going through domestic violence find the workplace a haven of peace. The break from the abuser that the employee gets when they report to work can result in psychological relief for the time the employee is at the work. However, the work place can also be a dangerous place for a victim of abuse since the abuser knows where to find them hence can stalk them and cause them harm. Therefore, measures need to be put in place to avoid transference of abuse from home to the office. Such transference would bring disruption at work as well as psychological torture to the victim which may lead to decline in performance.
Job performance for victims of domestic abuse is highly affected by toxic home environment even when the abuse has not been transferred to the workplace. The constant anxiety, worry and psychological affliction of having to deal with an abuser affects the pleasure that work gives an employee. Absenteeism and regular work disruption is commonly faced by victims of domestic abuse. Victims who are physically assaulted may not report to work since they would require to seek medical care as well as legal redress. In some instances, the abuser may hinder the victim from reporting to work by locking the victim in the house, confiscating car keys, hiding the money purse or wallet or threatening to bar the victim from accessing the house should they leave to report to work.
In contrast, the abusive behaviour also has a negative impact on the abuser. An abuser may use the designated working hours or office equipment eg, a mobile phone or email to perpetrate abuse by send threatening messages or planning how they would carry out acts of violence against the victim. Such an employee may also be preoccupied with the abuse that they intend to mete on their partner, hence be distracted from meeting their work goas. Consequently, this affects their work performance and may lead to disciplinary measures or dismissal. In addition, colleagues can also experience the adverse effects of domestic abuse by having to take up extra workloads to fill in the gap that arises out of a victim’s absenteeism. This may cause increase in stress levels in the workplace due to disruptions of the normal work schedule.
Managers, supervisors, team leaders, and colleagues should be keen on individual employees’ regular performance, their appearance, as well as their attendance at work. Once they identify behaviour which may indicate that one is going through domestic violence, they should offer to discuss the matter while upholding the employee’s privacy rights. Caution should be exercised so that the employee doesn’t infer that their private life is being invaded or interfered with. Human resource professionals should be able to identify the performance issues and offer guidance on how the employee affected by domestic violence can improve their performance.
In addition, job performance issues should be addressed directly and in a timely manner. Proper record keeping of facts about job performance issues should be maintained. Confidentiality should be upheld during job performance discussions and the matter should only be discussed with the relevant persons only. Continuous performance assessment should be carried out and any performance issues should not be left unaddressed. If an employer suspects that an employee’s job performance is negatively impacted by the persistent domestic violence situation, they may provide counselling or refer the employee for counselling as well as offer other available resources within and without the organisation, for example, training, to equip the employee to improve their performance. Ultimately, it is the employee’s responsibility to improve their job performance.
