How do personal tragedies affect your working environment?

When large events (like 911) happen, it can really take its toll on the working environment. Whether the problems happen in the nation or closer to home, personal tragedies can really hurt your office morale and can make it difficult for you to keep your production going.

What often happens with personal tragedies is that it impacts employees morale and it makes day-to-day work very difficult and tiresome for many people. Depending upon the type of tragedy, it can cause some people to declare bankruptcy and you may have hundreds of people that are unemployed. The large scale tragedies are not easy to deal with as the tragedies that are closer to home as you can have a different personal relationship with the employee and express your empathy to them. You want to help this employee that is going through the personal tragedy as much as possible by offering them time away from the office and moving forward with work-related activities while the employee focuses on getting a grasp on life and to move forward.

As the manager of a company, your job is to help your employees and to make sure they are safe. Depending on the type tragedy you are dealing with, you will need to follow some important rules pertaining to handling tragedy, they are as follows:
1. Check on the safety of your employees.
2. Do not be harsh on the employees when they are dealing with a tragedy. The loss of a close friend or loved one is devastating so you need to cut your employees a little slack when it comes to tragedy.
3. Rally your troops in support of the employee. Create a schedule for people to help them out with things like getting to and from work or even helping with meals.
4. Have a break room or a private room where employees that are coping with tragedy can go to relax and breathe to regain their composure in the workplace.
5. Offer your support.

While dealing with tragedy might not be in your companies training manual, it is something you will eventually deal with. You will want to include tips and techniques for coping with tragedy in your training manual for future HR personnel and employees in order to prepare them for times of sorrow and hardship.

Depending upon the type of tragedy your employees are dealing with, you do need to schedule a meeting so you can discuss it with everyone. For example, if a co-worker's spouse commits suicide, it is obviously going to devastate your employee. You need to let your other employees know so they do not ask inappropriate questions or so they do not go about their business and say something that can hurt their feelings or cause them to have a breakdown at work.

Have a meeting with the employee and talk to them about what you can do to help them. You will find that many employees request to be busy as it will help to keep their minds of their personal tragedy. Talk to them about the type of work they want to get involved with and if possible, try sending them away with other employees to do some work off-site where they can be in a new environment.

It is vital to contact crisis counseling centers to ask for their help when you have a tragedy that is impacting the productivity and overall health and morale of your office. You will need to get the number of a good crisis center that can send in a counselor right away to help you so you aren't trying to be a counselor and help people with issues that you might not know anything about.