My Team’s Personal Problems are Destroying Our Culture

Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.

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Dear Bev,

We have a small firm, just nine people in total. Several of our team members have had some very difficult life experiences over the last year. One person lost a spouse to cancer, another had a family member detach and move away without communicating with the family, and another has an adult child battling substance abuse. I share this only to say the life issues are significant and they are naturally impacting these team members’ abilities to do their jobs. One person was very short and nasty with a client who called in. This was one of our larger clients and they needed money to address a serious life event. The client got upset, broke down in tears and called me as COO of the firm to share their upset.

I am not an HR person – we are such a small firm we don’t have a full-time HR person. I am watching these issues play out day-to-day. I have deep sympathy for our team members, but the toxic nature of dealing with them and taking it out on our clients is not acceptable. I have always had a problem separating the business that needs to get done for the firm from the reality that life happens and people deal with difficult things.

I don’t know the line between saying, “leave the issues at home when you come to work” and defending our team members to clients and asking them to understand what the person is dealing with. I am out of my league, but I have to do something.

A.D.