What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 4)

Here are parts one, two and three of this series.

There are three levels of crying intensity. Here they are, in increasing order of severity:

1. Tears and runny nose
2. Constricted throat, making it difficult to speak
3. Sobbing

Let's look at each of these levels one at a time:

 

Dealing with Level 1 is straightforward: Hand the employee a box of tissues and give her reassurance each time she apologizes. Usually you’ll get two or three apologies before she realizes everything’s okay and then you just carry on with the meeting. You don’t have to wait for the tears to stop, in fact you shouldn’t. She’d much rather focus on the issue at hand than on the fact that she’s crying. One very smart, very competent woman told me that when she cries at work she wants to tell her boss,

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not that upset, I’m just crying. Let’s keep going with the meeting.”

Some time ago I had a young manager come to my office to tell me about a serious personal situation that was going to affect her work. As she talked, tears started running down her cheeks. She expressed embarrassment; I reassured her. She apologized; I again reassured her. She then carried on as though nothing was happening. I thought she handled the situation maturely and professionally. It actually increased my already high opinion of her. She showed good composure in difficult circumstances.

 

Level 2 is more complicated because it’s hard to converse with someone who’s having difficulty speaking. If the employee is choked up and can’t talk, what you want to do is take the pressure off her. Don’t just sit and stare at her. It helps to talk while she tries to collect herself. One thing that has worked well for me is to tell a story that is relevant but not upsetting. There’s almost always something in my background as a manager that comes to mind. There’s something about chatting a bit without asking the employee any questions that gives her some space to get herself under control. At some point the employee will usually make a comment in response to some aspect of the story and if her voice is normal and unconstricted you know you’re out of the woods and can pick up where you left off.

 

I've only had employees reach Level 3 – outright sobbing – a few times and it was always about a personal issue as opposed to a performance issue. What I ended up doing was giving the employee a big hug, after getting her permission to do so, and that really seemed to help a lot. I realize this is probably contrary to what your HR director would advise, but in those instances it was clearly the right thing to do as a human being and as a manager and in each case it seemed to do the employee a world of good. A good hug is wonderful medicine and one of the nicest things people can do for each other. It’s a shame hugging has become so disfavored, which, of course is the result of some really lousy managers using hugging as an excuse for groping.

 

Whether it’s a good idea for you to give a crying employee a hug depends entirely on your ability to judge whether it will seem like a comfort or an imposition to the employee. If you’re not confident of your ability to make that judgment call, don’t do it. Plus, only do it if you are comfortable doing so, if hugging comes naturally to you. If you feel awkward giving a hug, your employee will definitely feel awkward getting it.

Well, that’s it for the “99 Tears” series of posts. One of my goals for this blog is to give new managers the kind of information I wish someone had given me years ago. I hope these tips prove useful for you (though not too often!).

Comments

[CMR]

Is it your impression that the touch/don't touch issues of office management have been resolved to some extent? I don't see them come up as news items as often as before. One would hope that a balance could be found between protecting employees from unwanted advances and allowing them to receive supportive touch.

[Applied Friend]

Seriously, this is a bunch of "used car salesman hogwash!" Are you seriously spending time writing about this crap? Come on, talk about profitability or integrating departments together or something more substantive than a 4 part series relating to crying at the workplace. I can't recall the last time I saw or heard of someone crying at work due to a conversation from a superior. And if it was relevant, is their a need for a 4 part series?

[Reagan]

CMR: You're right, physical contact doesn't seem to be the hot button issue it was some years ago, which is probably for the best. There does seem to be a new balance emerging. For myself, I ask first, and that seems to take care of any potential concerns.

Applied Friend: Congratulations! You're the first troll on my blog!

[JMD]

I would like to respond to Friend. As a frequent cryer I would have to conclude that either you don't work with women, you are over 60, or you are a bit heartless. We have 24 hours in a day. Most adults average 7 hours sleeping which leaves 17 hours. A minimum work day is 8.5 hours which means that most of us spend at least half of our awake-time at work. Male or female - our work time has become our living time. Of course profitability is important, but if a manager wants to keep excellent staff (my reviews consisently show that I'm excellent staff), then the work place needs to be a place where I can live as human and not just be a monetary statistic. Unfortunately, most managers have been taught about production, not about managing their staff with caring, decency, and leadership. My work experience has shown that the best profits come from workplaces with these corporate values and management that has been trained and is committed to them. I applaud Mr. Pufall for being willing to take the time to share his knowledge on the things that are not taught to managers but are things managers really need to know to become successful. PS - the 20-Somethings coming into the workplace are acutely aware that work=life and knowing the type of management info provided by Mr Pufall will become a necessity.

[AF]

First of all, AF stands for Applied Friend, but since everyone uses acronyms, I am sure you caught on to my decision to create my own as well. Secondly, I work with women and my comment was not heartless but rather a viewpoint I have experienced. I do not see people crying at work. I can recall of one incident where a coworker got upset, but they left immediately and were not sobbing by candlelight in a superior's office. Maybe one should understand a human's psyche and the fact that we wear different "masks" in different situations, work being an example. Now I am not discrediting the content in Reagan's blog but rather find it a bit overdrawn and maybe should have been a single post, not a 4 part series.
Responding to JMD, you indicated you are "excellent" but what makes you excellent? Maybe it’s just your narcissistic inner "human" that is reaching to the surface for some air? I do agree that a work environment needs to foster a balance between leadership and compassion, but knowing where to locate a tissue box is not being compassionate. Making sure you have the right kind of Kleenex is not compassionate. And definitely acting as if you care is not compassionate. If you truly are an “excellent boss” who cares, you would most likely already know which employees are on the verge of crying and by default; you would fix the situation by trying to defuse the situation. You can't fool your employees; it has to come from the heart. Maybe the analysis of this blog topic should have covered why employees are crying, because if it is the result of a traumatic occurrence, most likely they will not be climbing the ladder for emotional support.
Responding to Reagan, I am not a troll. Maybe my language was too over the top for a compassionate leader like yourself. Hopefully you will accept my apologies. I am not posting for the sole purpose of trying to “bait you into an argumentative response” but rather would like you to provide insight into topics more relevant on a day-to-day basis like how to empower employees to increase productivity, treating your employees as responsible adults, how to maintain low employee turnover (which is my personal favorite and one I hope Reagan writes about in the future), and other related topics.
Back to JMD for one other follow up, the younger generation coming into the professional arena already knows how to treat employees. It’s the terminator management style of the Old Guard middle managers that needs to learn this information. They are the ones that have been programmed to look at employees as inputs. Maybe if they were focusing less on trying to increase profits by reducing the employee interaction and instead nurturing their employees and empowering them to be creative and find new avenues for profit, they wouldn’t need to read these articles.

[MACK34Sabrina]

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