Ethics: My Employee Is Hiding Her Job From Her Husband. It’s Become Everyone’s Problem

A reader writes: I have a part time employee who has been with me for several years now. She’s never been able to do more than 10 hours a week but she has a unique skill set and experiences that are really helpful for my business.

For the last year, her productivity and quality of work have become increasingly inconsistent. Her work is great sometimes and poor others. Sometimes she’s very productive and sometimes she misses important deadlines completely. Sometimes she doesn’t put in any hours for a week and then wants to make it all up later. That puts a lot of stress on other people who suddenly receive a large number of requests from her. My business is run entirely remotely, which makes this whole situation so much harder because all communication is via Zoom, or Monday, or texts, or phone calls.

Fairly frequently she’ll cancel a meeting with someone at the last minute because she’s “sick” and leave them without needed information or deliverables. One time she had to leave abruptly in the middle of a team meeting because her husband got home.

I know there are issues at home and she’s currently hiding the fact that she’s working from her husband. I’m concerned she’s in a physically abusive relationship. I’ve talked with her about it and she has confirmed that she wants to continue working for my company. What’s the best way to handle this?

Minda Zetlin responds:

First of all, it does sound very much like this employee is in an abusive relationship. It may be physical abusive, emotional abuse, or both. But if she believes she needs to hide her work from her husband, it sounds like he is attempting to control her. And most abusive relationships are all about control.

For people trapped in those kinds of relationships, work is often a lifeline, and a much needed sanity check. It sounds like your company needs her, and she needs her job as well.

You wisely are not trying to intervene in your employee’s relationship. At the same time, she trusts you enough to tell you what’s going on. That leaves the door open for you to let her know you can be a resource if she ever needs one.