Strife at Home Affects the Office, Too

By KELLEY HOLLAND, The New York Times

When an associate at the law firm Greenberg Traurig first told Cesar Alvarez, the chief executive, that domestic violence was a workplace issue that the firm needed to address, he was skeptical.

“I just didn’t see it,” he recalled. “You weigh how important things are by the number of problems you see, and I didn’t see a lot of problems.”

There had been one incident several years earlier, he said, when an employee’s partner had come to the office. “Nothing horrible happened, but they did get in,” he said. That was all he knew about.

But Stacey P. Dougan, the lawyer who brought up the issue, persisted, citing statistics and pointing out that victims were unlikely to seek help directly from their firm’s chief executive. Eventually, Mr. Alvarez said, he was convinced.

Greenberg Traurig now trains employees to identify domestic-violence victims, and offers benefits for employees who are victims, including leaves of absence and referrals to outside agencies. The firm has also advised other companies about how to protect their own employees.

Mr. Alvarez, who is based in Miami, still doesn’t necessarily see evidence of domestic violence himself, he said. But now, he said, “a lot of people, when they do have an issue, they can come and discuss it with the people we have trained around the office. We want to encourage them to seek help.”

Domestic violence, it seems, is something of a misnomer. We all know that violence against partners is a scourge in many homes. But it can also be a problem in the workplace.

One-fifth of all full-time employed adults are or have been victims of domestic violence, according to a survey by the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence. And a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that women, the most common victims, lose nearly eight million days of work annually because they have been threatened, stalked or physically assaulted by current or former partners or spouses.

Less than one-fourth of even the largest private sector employers provide training in dealing with domestic violence, according to a survey released in 2006 for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Only 4 percent of all employers offer such training.

“Enlightened employers know nobody leaves their problems at the door when they come to work,” said Kimberly Wells, executive director of the corporate alliance. But, she added, “there is a lack of awareness. There’s the idea of ‘Gosh, could that really be here?’”

Many senior executives in corporate America do not hear about any problems. They mostly work with other senior managers, and those people — particularly the women, who may have struggled to succeed — are often unwilling to disclose anything that could be perceived as a failing, Ms. Wells said.

“If you are a high-level management person, it doesn’t matter what the laws are in your state,” she said. “If you’re supposed to ‘know better’ you’re going to do as little as possible to let people know what’s happening to you.”

On one level, it is hard to imagine why any victim of domestic violence would not ask for help. But put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has worked hard all her life — attended the right schools, propelled herself into a promising career, built an impressive résumé — and who is also in an out-of-control relationship in which she is getting hurt. If work is her refuge, and she believes that disclosing her personal problems would jeopardize her position, she might well be loath to say anything.

But more victims are coming forward. And human resources managers are becoming much more active in dealing with the issue, said Garry Mathiason, a senior partner at the law firm Littler Mendelson in San Francisco who focuses on workplace violence issues.

Luckily, it does not take a big investment to address domestic violence in the workplace.

For one thing, it is important to train managers to recognize signs pointing to potential abuse. Often, these signs may be subtle: employees may simply seem distracted, less punctual or less able to meet deadlines. Smart managers also develop a flexible, interdepartmental response to domestic violence.

Liz Claiborne has been addressing the problem for over a decade, but few employees at the company came forward initially. Several years ago, the company assembled a response team involving human resources, security and the legal department, and more than 100 employees have since sought help, said Jane Randel, a Liz Claiborne spokeswoman and director of the company’s “Love Is Not Abuse” program, which addresses domestic violence.

As part of its efforts, Liz Claiborne has taken steps like employee relocation and helping law enforcement officials track down a missing employee.

Most important, companies need to communicate that employees can be helped, and point them to the appropriate organizations in the community.

“The employer can’t fix it,” said Ms. Dougan, the former lawyer at Greenberg Traurig who is now the chief professional development officer at Powell Goldstein, a law firm in Atlanta. But they “can be a link to resources, and can be an incredible source of support.”