11 Personal Problems Affecting Work – Guide To Stop It

More than half of the people all across the globe suffer from personal problems affecting their work.

Have you ever experienced this yourself? Or did you see any of your coworkers being super irritated because he didn’t get enough sleep?

11 Major Personal Problems Affecting Work

If not, you will experience personal life affecting work once in your life. Although no one intentionally brings these problems to work, it’s impossible to focus when so much is going on in the head.

Different personal problems can affect work, like traveling long routes to work. The person already feels tired before even starting the day.

Or an employee might be going through a bad phase of his relationship. All these problems contribute to bad performance at work.

We’ve covered some basic personal problems; yet, these can vary in different cases.

1. The Daily Commute To Work:

A considerable number of the population worldwide suffer from this problem daily. If your workplace is far from your home, you’ll have to bear with the long commutes.

It also leads to sleep problems as the person won’t get enough time to rest at home. For instance, if a person works 40 hours a week, the commute takes half an hour, he’ll have an inactive lifestyle.

People working from far away areas from their homes suffer from sleep problems as compared to others.

2. Lack Of Sleep – Personal Problems affecting Work:

As mentioned above, if a person doesn’t get enough time to sleep, he’ll develop serious health problems. Also, the lack of sleep affects work when a person can’t focus on his tasks.

Less sleeping hours make you suffer from health issues like high blood pressure or heart stroke.

It also leads to obesity, depression, impairment in immunity. If one develops such serious problems, he won’t be able to continue effectively doing the job.

3. Work Failures On The Job – A Major Problem:

You must be thinking that this one is a work-related problem and not personal. If a person is facing failures because of his own mistakes, these failures are a personal problem.

For instance, if he failed in completing one task within the deadline, there’d be no motivation to start the next one.

All these factors lower down the morale of the worker, and his productivity rate falls to zero.

4. Overwhelmed Emotions Affecting Work:

An employee might get overwhelmed emotionally because of his personal problems at home. He’s finding difficulty in managing his emotions and ends up doing disasters at work.

Such people get their frustration out on their coworkers, leading to poor relationships.

No matter what, a stable mind and willingness to deal with problems are necessary to work anywhere.

Overwhelming emotions affect the ability to think and act, so definitely, in such a state, a person can’t work properly.

5. Constant Mood Swings – Personal Problems Affecting Work:

Mood swings are an immense change in emotions from one side of the spectrum to the other.

There can be different causes behind swinging moods, like bipolar depression or PMS.

Mood swings affect work when a person is happily going about his day, but suddenly he’s upset or hostile.

While suffering from mood swings, it’s impossible to complete the daily tasks. It eventually results in reduced productivity.

6. No Intrinsic Motivation To Work:

All these personal problems are somehow interconnected to each other and affect work. A person may have depression, and this is what contributes to a lack of motivation.

Although motivation should be extrinsic and is a work-related issue, none can motivate a person unless he’s willing.

There can be different reasons and personal experiences behind a depressive phase. So when a person isn’t motivated enough, how can he contribute to the betterment of the organization?

7. The Stress Of Running Out Of Time:

The employee is bad at time management and never completes his tasks in his previous work history. And now this thing is getting onto his nerves.

Even if there’s enough time, he’ll be hurriedly working to meet deadlines, resulting in bad performance.

That fear of not having enough time converts into major stress, a personal problem.

The person looks for shortcuts to complete work on time, resulting in major work problems.

8. Drug Abuse Badly Affects Work:

If an employee is a drug addict or consumes too much alcohol, he’s likely to show bad performance at work.

That’s because drugs interfere with the ability to focus on work and stay attentive.

An employee usually gets late from work or sleeps during the working hours at his desk.

It also leads to poor decision-making in that person because he’s under the influence of drugs. Drugs decrease efficiency and increase the rate of turnover.

9. Divorce – Personal Problems Affecting Work:

Divorces usually cause a decreased level of happiness and emotional issues. The worker will be mentally absent from work because he is mourning over that relationship loss.

The worker who loved his job is now struggling to complete tasks and is fed up with the workload.

Employees who struggle through a divorce are often tardy and miss work. Also, their performance and productivity become too low as compared to their coworkers.

10. Gambling Addiction:

If a person suffers from gambling addiction, they will negatively impact the workplace.

Because of such employees, company reputation gets destroyed, followed by lower employee morale.

Also, gambling-addicted people become the cause of excessive theft and fraud at work. They might invite their coworkers to gamble with them, and eventually, everyone suffers harm.

Not only there’s a psychological disturbance at the workplace, but also financial problems occur.

11. Mental Illnesses Affect Work:

Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety somehow associate with inability and unemployment.

When a worker has a mental illness, his ability to focus on the tasks is held back, and he can’t work on daily tasks.

Performance reduces because of mental issues, the person becomes too irritated to stay at work.

It’s all because the person loses concentration and because of the fights ongoing in his mind.

6 Tips To Deal With Personal Problems Affecting Work

It’s inevitable to forget about your personal problems when you come to work. But you can try to eliminate the effect these problems are causing on your work life.

Here are some tips for dealing with this situation.

1. Avoid Over-Sharing About Personal Life:

It’s better to tell as little as possible; your boss and coworkers should know little about your life.

There’s no need to tell everyone about your every personal problem. It can result in work problems later on as your boss thinks you’re too lazy to continue the job.

2. Try To Manage Your Emotions:

Getting angry at work because of your personal problems is okay if it’s not affecting your work.

You’ve got to keep that anger to yourself because it’ll be problematic to get your frustration out on others.

Of course, it will be difficult for you to manage your emotions, but you can take counseling if you want.

3. Decide Whether To Reveal Your Dark Side:

If you’re bipolar or have serious depression issues, then you’ve to decide whether to tell your boss or not.

These personal problems are severe ones and it affects the other people working with you.

Decide whether you want to reveal your condition and do it reasonably.

4. Dealing With Job Burnout:

Although job burnout results from working too hard, it affects us personally.

If you’re overworked because of the fear of losing your job, you should take some strategic steps.

Before a severe mental or physical problem strikes you due to job burnout, try to turn things around.

5. Tackle Your Disability:

If you have a disability that keeps you from thriving further in your career, you should reassess your situation.

Talk to your physician about the possible options of working with your disability. Meanwhile, keep reminding yourself that you aren’t less worthy than other people. Keep your spirits high!

6. Working During A Pregnancy:

Pregnancy is great news that brings excitement and happiness with it. But if you’re in the early stage of your pregnancy, decide when to announce it at work.

Remember that your pregnancy can affect the job, and you won’t work in the later months.

However, you can take maternity leave when you can’t get along with work due to your condition.

5 Tips To Deal With Employees Who Have Personal Problems

It’s important to help people deal with their personal problems.

That’s because it can hurt the team’s productivity. So, being a boss, what you should do to save the team.

1. Make Sure It’s Not Because Of Work:

When a worker brings personal problems at work, you should ensure that these are not related to work. What if the job is causing so much stress to that person?

Either the problems are because of the workload he’s facing, or they have nothing to do with the workload.

If it’s because of work, you should reassess the situation and assign lesser tasks to that employee.

2. Talk To That Employee:

Once you know about the problem, you should speak with that person directly. Remember to gather the necessary information but don’t be too late to address the issue.

When you talk to the employee, tell them about the problems and quote some examples. Avoid being confrontational but speak in a direct tone.

3. Listen To What He Says:

Even if the employee’s personal problems affect work productivity, avoid going too deep into it. For instance, if a worker has marital issues, you shouldn’t ask for specifics.

You are their boss and not the therapist, so it’s not your job to dig deep into the problem.

4. Show Sympathy But Stay Fair:

That worker must be noticing your reaction to his problems, so avoid being dismissive. It would be good to show sympathy, but you should correct them if they’re wrong.

It’s necessary to treat that employee fairly, even if the problem is on their end. It will be a good idea to give him some time off.

5. Refer Them To A Therapist:

As you can’t be a therapist of your employees, you can definitely guide them in the right direction. Guide them about the resources company offers in such situations.

You can also refer them to a good therapist who can help them get out of their personal troubles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Do You Do When An Employee Brings Personal Problems To Work?

First of all, you need to make sure that work isn’t the source of the problem. Have a direct conversation with the person and ask him what’s bothering him. You must not involve too deep in this, but keep your ears open to listen. Show sympathy to them but stay fair.

What Are Personal Problems?

Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting life like unemployment, divorce, etc. Other people of society consider these problems as the failures of that individual.

How Are Personal Issues And Social Issues Connected?

Personal issues are individual and affect the person facing them or his close ones. Social problems affect a wide range of people like unemployment affects millions of people.

Should You Tell Your Boss About Family Issues?

It’s never a good idea to share your personal problems with your boss as it’s a working relationship. However, if necessary, give them enough explanation that’s understandable for them.

Conclusion

Either the problems are personal or work-related, these are going to affect the work. When a person gets overwhelmed because of personal problems, performance is affected.

The morale of the workplace falls. It becomes difficult for even other people to continue working at such a workplace.

The work relations deteriorate between coworkers, and their productivity is reduced.

You can share your experience in the comment section below.

Last Updated on 4 hours by Shahzaib Arshad