Risk perspectives - Staying aware of a staff member's personal crisis

Would you be able to identify which member of your team is suffering a personal crisis which may impact on their working life?

The recent case of an anaesthetist who blamed stress following his suspension for taking drugs stolen from the hospital highlights how hidden problems have the potential to snowball into major crises in the workplace.

In this situation, it was only discovered that the individual in question had been injecting himself with painkillers 100 times stronger than heroin, when a colleague became suspicious about his behaviour. This enabled management to act and avoid being faced with a high profile misconduct case had a patient been affected by an error by the employee.

Human error is a fact of life but it is important for managers to identify any problems before they turn into a crisis. If management procedures are not in place to help employers spot the early signs of stress, it could easily lead to mistakes by employees.

The consequences of not being able to identify potential causes of stress-induced professional misconduct, could be felt for years to come. Any company involved in such a case, which suffers a major loss and claim against its professional indemnity (PI) cover, will pay for employee errors through raised PI premiums long after the employee situation has been resolved.

There is no formula for identifying how personal problems faced by employees will affect the ability to do their job. However, there are processes which can be put in place to improve the communication process and encourage an effective dialogue between managers and their team.

Under the new regulatory regime, it has become even more important to ensure that arrangements are in place to monitor and assess staff on a regular basis. This provides an opportunity for a manager to sit down with each employee and have an honest and frank discussion about their work and the pressures they may be facing. This should be a two-way process, enabling the employee to raise concerns they face.

Good supervision not only prevents mistakes happening in the first place but enables staff to discuss problems before they reach a crisis enabling the supervisor to remedy the mistake and rescue the situation.