An Employee’s Divorce Can Hurt Your Business: Here’s What You Can Do About It

Whether you take a liking to this fact or not, an employee’s divorce can hurt your business. Divorce is a personal matter, but it’s nothing less than a personnel matter for your business. Of course, it disrupts their private space. But, that disruption reflects in their work too. Owing to a painful situation such as this, an employee must endure a great amount of stress and anxiety.

Moreover, they might have to bear the burden of time obligations and look after the financial aspect. Their companies might have to face some questions from their spouse too. All these might be discomforting for business. So, what can you do about it? The following points would discuss just that.

Know What Rights Does An Employee Hold In A Divorce And Their Spouse’s RTI

A non-employee spouse has the legal right to ask the company to furnish information. Now, the problem arises when the company either refuses to co-operate. They either hide or make unnecessary delays. As a result, that hikes up the costs as well. As a business owner, you can sit down and discuss with an attorney who knows the ins and outs of the divorce law in your state. That can help you come up with policies and procedures for your company.

These will, in turn, streamline the whole process. You need to be aware that a non-employee has the right to ask for information regarding salary, stock options, tax returns, compensation agreements, and a lot of things. The non-employee spouse has the right to access only the information that falls within the time frame of the marriage. As the company owner, you have the right not to co-operate if there is a request for information that falls beyond that very time frame. Do keep this in mind.

Have An Organized Compensation Structure

The first and foremost thing that, as a business owner, you should do is organizing your compensation as well as documenting incentive programs for every employee of your company. Make a file of those documents. That will contain all the details of every employee who is working for your company. This information can be smoothly organized by any third party or with the help of software. Everything has to be employee-centered. Poor documentation and an unorganized approach are strict no-nos.

Employees Must Have Access To The Information Regarding Their Compensation

When you give an employee complete access to their compensation information, they will readily derive what they need at any given time. Asking the company for any information in need would be a waste of time and nothing else.

You can provide the information to the employees either once every four months or once in six months. Thereby, it becomes easy for the employee to furnish the relevant data during a divorce proceeding. This policy, moreover, allows the employee to maintain privacy in terms of personal crisis. This certainly is a bonus for them.

You Need To Be Fast

If any documentation, is necessary legally, and is not furnished in an organized fashion, you add more to the hourly bill from the corporate counsel and the accountants, who must have all the records with them. If the scenario worsens, a divorce attorney, who knows his work too well, can screw the corporate counsel. Remember, the rules about divorce are completely different from those related to the corporate world.
The corporate counsel might suddenly find themselves in a fix as they might have to produce information of massive volume. However, if your company makes it a point that it will co-operate and comply with every legitimate request, your employee can do away with the divorce proceedings smoothly and fast. Won’t that be beneficial for your business? Aside from that, the employee would neither have to endure so much stress nor battle distraction. By being fast, you save time as well as money.

Being smart and organized is always beneficial. Your priority should be to keep your workforce motivated and far away from any distractions as an employer. You should help your employee get over the disruptions fast enough for emotionally disturbing issues such as divorce. Eventually, that will do your business and you a world of good and keep you away from trouble.