Divorce Etiquette Handling Your Boss At Work

Divorce Etiquette Handling Your Boss At Work

5 tips to handle yourself appropriately

To put it bluntly, when it comes to your own emotional and personal challenges with your divorce, the truth is all your firm cares about is if you do the job you were hired to do. Although this may be hard to hear, your firm does not owe you anything, as most companies expect their employees to leave their personal issues at home.

Further, no matter how evolved your workplace may be, most working environments are not equipped to handle an employee's personal issues. And unfortunately, divorce is a personal issue, and HR departments are often unsympathetic and do not offer adequate support (certainly in the cases I have seen and experienced).

If you feel yourself getting emotional, the best thing to do is to excuse yourself and leave the building for ten minutes — try to remain as professional and unemotional as possible. Eventually, you may want to tell your boss what you’re dealing with, but do this in a very brief and matter-of-fact way.

You may at this point ask for a few days off. If granted, deal with any urgent matters that won’t wait until your return to office. Above all, if you think you might get overly emotional while having this conversation, write a formal email or letter and avoid a face to face.

Here are five tips on divorce etiquette in the workplace:

• Communicate very clearly with your boss about what he or she can and can’t count on from you. Give deadlines and try your best to stick to them. However, if it looks like you are struggling to meet a deadline, communicate with your boss immediately and recommit to what is possible.
• Watch your work hours. Your colleagues and boss will be looking to see if you are working less hours, therefore, unless you have permission to work less, work the full allotted time you are hired to work. If you arrive late, communicate immediately that you are going to be late AND ensure you work later to make up the time.
• If you are taking time off and have close relationships with clients, I wouldn’t recommend telling them about your divorce. Simply mention you are taking some time off and their contact person whilst you are away is [insert name.]
• If you have the option to work from home, do so. It’s easier to maintain professional etiquette via email and remotely than to be around the colleagues and people you work with every day when you’re dealing with raw emotions.
• Inform the accounts department as soon as possible about your pending divorce as your tax code may change. If you feel nervous about calling and aren’t feeling organized, prepare a list of things to communicate and email this through. Ensure that you include your current tax code in the email.

Lots of hugs! Adele