Why HR becomes the emotional backstop
HR teams field all kinds of challenging employee situations, ranging from leaves of absences triggered by personal or family emergencies to performance issues rooted in employee burnout, financial or relationship problems, and everything in between. Employee relations matters might center on an upset team member dealing with anything from workplace anxiety to distrust of the company.
HR professionals are well aware that the modern HR role is fraught with emotional demands. People operations professionals routinely deal with:
- Employee grief, poor health, or caregiving responsibilities
- Relationship or family issues impacting work
- Employee burnout
- Interpersonal conflict or employee isolation
- Uncertainty in the midst of change
- Job or financial insecurity or housing challenges
In these and similar situations, HR is expected to strike a delicate balance, demonstrating empathy and compassion while also keeping boundaries, taking notes, protecting the organization, and otherwise staying within their wheelhouse.
Of course, HR isn’t the only team dealing with emotional issues at work, but they may be the team employees believe can (or should!) help, especially when those challenges spill into the office. HR may seem like the go-to department when employees need help, advice, or just someone to listen, and they’re often seen as more approachable, confidential, and empowered to act on problems.
HR pros know all about the emotional demands of the HR seat. It’s not always easy to compartmentalize all that personal info shared during one-on-ones or leave of absence chats. Sometimes HR team members can’t help but walk into their next meeting still thinking about that last employee’s situation, and wonder what they could’ve done to help.
Compassion without boundaries creates burnout
Employees may believe HR is their best bet for advice or support when dealing with tough personal or professional challenges. But that doesn’t mean HR team members are always best suited (emotionally or otherwise) to help.
HR pros juggle a mountain of administrative and employee relations work, from employee benefits and investigations to policy adherence and more. With so many balls in the air, HR may not always have the bandwidth to give employees’ personal issues the attention and compassion they deserve.
Employees dealing with challenging situations might appreciate a sounding board that feels slightly removed from HR’s more official role at the company. And HR may be stretched too thin to consistently step into an ad hoc counseling role.
Plus, compassion without boundaries can leave HR pros burnt out, and employees walking away from HR conversations still feeling like no one listened to or cared about their issues.
Why a neutral support team matters
HR isn’t the only potential sounding board for employees navigating personal or work challenges, and in some cases, employees may appreciate a caring ear from a source slightly removed from people operations. That’s where a workplace chaplaincy for human resources can help.
Employees might feel more comfortable sharing personal struggles with a trusted third-party professional not affiliated with their chain of command, and who isn’t involved in any investigations or decisions affecting their employment status. HR, on the other hand, may appreciate having a neutral team to refer employees to for one-on-one support in lieu of fielding potentially emotionally draining conversations themselves.
Workplace chaplains aren’t trained to conduct employee relations investigations, make people operations decisions, or dispense legal advice, but they can lend an empathetic ear, offer words of encouragement, and point employees in the direction of additional support resources.
Drawing clearer lines of responsibility
By leaning on workplace chaplaincy services, people operations leaders can divide and conquer employee support efforts:
- HR owns investigations, notes and record keeping, benefits questions, policy adherence, and other day-to-day people operations responsibilities
- Chaplaincy services own one-on-one employee support, including listening, encouragement, and other ways of showing employees they care
- Managers own performance management and other people leadership responsibilities
That said, if your team is small and employee support needs aren’t particularly frequent (and you already know of helpful resources you can point employees toward as needed), adding workplace chaplaincy services to your employee support mix might be overkill. But for larger or geographically dispersed teams, informal employee support efforts may leave more gaps than they fill.
Support and retention are connected
Employees juggle a mountain of responsibilities off the clock, and when those responsibilities become overwhelming, it can affect their performance and happiness at work.
When employees believe their employer sees (and cares about) the person behind the job title, they may be more likely to stick around when times get tough.
By investing in workplace chaplaincy services, you can show employees you care about their well-being beyond the workplace. You also create a safe space for employees to get support before simmering employee relations issues boil over into absences, interpersonal conflict, disengagement, turnover, and more.
And for HR, workplace chaplaincy services can:
- Offer employees a caring ear from a trusted professional outside of HR, freeing HR pros up to focus on their core responsibilities
- Take some emotionally draining conversations off HR’s plate
- Point employees toward resources HR pros may not have known (or had time to look) up
- Provide employees with ongoing, empathetic support outside of crisis situations
Similarly, HR should consider in advance the manner in which the success of the chaplaincy will be measured. Metrics that avoid requesting confidential information from chaplains may include overall usage trends, frequently requested services or resources and the level of awareness employees have of the chaplain’s services. Such metrics can help identify potential areas for increased accessibility to the program and opportunities to enhance awareness and communications, without jeopardizing employee privacy.
What needs answering before rollout?
Before adding chaplaincy services to your employee support mix, ask yourself:
- How will employees know what information (if any) chaplaincy services share with HR and other members of management, and what information stays between them and chaplains?
- Will employees in field, remote, and/or shift-based positions have equal access to chaplaincy services as their in-office, nine-to-five counterparts?
- How will employees know they can reach out to chaplaincy services for support outside of acute crises?
- How will HR refer employees to chaplaincy services in a way that doesn’t pressure employees to participate?
If an employee shares information with a chaplain indicating they or others may be at risk of serious harm, or discloses potential harassment or another workplace safety violation related to occupational health (nature.com/subjects/occupational-health), how (and to whom) will that information be escalated?