How to Help A Friend/Employee

RedBall

Hi,

I hope this is this most appropriate place to post. Im after some advice on how to approach something of a difficult situation and see if anyone else has experience of dealing with this type of scenario.

I have a friend, who happens to also be an employee (small company and we are all good friends and the distinct employer/employee relationship normally associated with corporate environment isnt as overbearing in our work environment).

I have become aware that this person is in financial difficulty and I fear they have a serious problem. Whilst their income fluctuates due to commission based earnings, they earn well into six figures (over £1m in the last 5 years).

There was a spreadsheet saved on our internal servers which came to my attention whilst trying to clean up space to improve our cloud backup. On checking it before deciding whether it could be removed, it was abreakdown of this persons expenses and some sort of "plan" to get themselves out of debt.

They had at least a dozen different finance payments, four payday loans and other monthly costs racked up, so much so that each month was showing a deficit, and the requirement for another payday loan the following month.

I know they are not on the housing ladder, (I believe they were turned down for a mortgage based on this credit issue, but the story given to friends and colleagues is that they chose to just shop around for the right house a bit longer), they continue to book holidays or weekend excursions with their wife, holidays with "the lads" to the states etc. I believe he may be keeping this from his wife, and trying to "keep up appearances" whilst getting further and further into this problem.

I am concerned not only as a friend that this will result in mental or physical health issues for this person, but also as an employer because they may see a way out to try and load higher levels of commission into the services we sell which could put our company in a bad light.

They have basically nothing to show for the excess of £1m they have earned, and haven't even got on the housing ladder during this time (lives up north, so house prices not the issue they are down south even for this level of earning).

Theonly possible explanation I can come up with for this, is that they have some sort of problem either with drugs or gambling. Im leaning toward gambling as they are forever retweeting paddy power or betfred or similar, discussions in the office on whether a bet has come off on last nights matches is a regular event, though not with me as I dont follow football.

Given Im an employer, and althoughIve seen this information because it was stored on our servers, Im really not sure how to approach this. He has long time friends employed here that would help, but I cant divulge what I know to them, nor would I want to go to his wife incase that results in problems at home.

I could and have asked in performance reviews if there is anything outside of work that he would like help with or anything I can do as a boss/friend to assist him in life, but that gets stonewalled and "nope, nothing to worry about thanks mate"..

Any advice at all is greatly appreciated..

Jsnb88

First off, you sound like a good boss who cares about his employees,
That being said, there is nothing you can really do until this person brings the problem up, a lack of money (when high earning) tends to stems from addiction, be that shopping, gambling, drinking and let’s be optimistic, let’s say you can turn around and give this person a million pound tomorrow, unless they are helping themselves they will just dig back into the hole.

I would say the best thing to do is to be there on the sidelines and give support when probably needed in the future.

RedBall

Thanks for the response. We do like to think of ourselves as pretty good employers, we've only had three people leave in over 20 years. I spent a long time in a corporate world where I was treated as a number, and I know it breeds a them and us culture with employees not feeling valued, I ultimately left as a result of that because as a manager there I was not prepared to treat my team like senior managers wanted. Valued employees also tend to take less sick, are more productive and helpful, and that comes across to customers too.

That being said, it is still a worry and its quite annoying being effectively hamstrung by the employee/employer red tape and rules whilst watching a friend continue to walk into a problem. I could also see they have budgeted for a Christmas bonus of a certain figure - I can increase this to the extent it allows them to pay off a payday loan a month earlier than they forecast, but I can only hope they choose to do that with the extra rather than go on another weekend away with the wife.

Obviously if it creeps into work and the scenario of loading customers prices does occur, then I will have to don my employer hat and ask questions as to why that has been done, which may open the discussion onto this debt issue.

To be fai their "plan" looked quite structured, but they were self sabotaging by booking things like lads holidays abroad and sticking another couple of grand on forecast expenses for those items. Perhaps I could look for ways to politely deny holiday requests so they cant go? Though I'm almost certainly breaking some form of employment law by denying those requests for no good reason other than to stop them spending money.

Jsnb88

Yes I think if you where to go down the road of denying holiday requests for no good reason would be a slippery slope.

I presume by loading customer prices you mean increasing the price a customer pays to increase commission?
This is where it becomes hard when employees are also friends and I would keep a close eye on their accounts as ultimately if it starts to effect the business it’s needs to be addressed and dealt with swiftly.

Good luck with it all

RedBall

Thanks, Hopefully they will be able to sort it out and the plan that they have put together starts to work. Or hopefully something not so serious will be a wakeup call - not being able to afford a holiday or weekend away when they get denied for another loan etc.

IAmWales

You can deny holiday requests for any reason or no reason at all, so long as you allow them to take their statutory entitlement within the holiday year. I'm not sure it would achieve much though, as they may just book holidays another time.

In your position I would do two things:

* Send out a general email saying if anyone needs an ear you're always willing to listen etc, along with a list of contacts for people's general welfare. That could be a link to Mind, debt advice charities, various groups that could apply to anyone. Look into the cost of providing an employee assistance programme.

* Audit his past figures carefully. You need to be sure he's not doing anything to jeopardise the company's reputation.

RedBall

Thanks for that. Good ideas.

We do have a financial adviser visit the company that several employees use the services of to sort out things like pensions, savings, and other stuff. Obviously Im not privvy to what this employee discusses with that adviser other than I know he talks to the adviser about pensions as he requests we make adjustments on his personal pension contributions from time to time (these have dropped from £1k a month to zero).

Good shout on the list of places to turn for help. I have a chat with all employees in one to one meetings and always ask if there is anything else they think I can help with. Ive got involved in helping with planning applications to DIY assistance and even been out in rain sorting car issues for others. Hopefully he may open up in one of these meetings and I can help, or at least point them in the right direction for professional help.

In the interim I will have a word with our HR advisers and see if there is any regulation or publication I can use as an excuse to push out a list of helpful numbers etc so it isn't too obvious its being done because somebody in the office may have a problem.

Already done an audit on figures/sales, its done as part of our ongoing processes so it hasn't yet appeared to affect work ethic. Hopefully it can be resolved before it does.

Thanks again for the advice, much appreciated.