Signs and Symptoms of a Troubled Employee for Trainers In Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)s

Educating supervisors about the signs and symptoms of a troubled employee (or less politically correct: problem employee) contains three important objectives: 1) providing a solid list of the signs and

symptoms within the context of the workplace; 2) Helping supervisors avoid jumping to armchair diagnostic thinking and behaviors, some of which can be very subtle; and 3) Understanding how to document, confront, and refer workers to an employer/corporate authorized source of help and assessment like an EAP (not treatment or counseling, which is beyond the supervisor/manager's abilities,and which will increase risk to the employer.)

We will discuss the first objective and I will blog later to address the second and third parts of our goal of educating supervisors in signs and symptoms of a troubled employee. 

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Purchase the editable and reproducible editable tip sheet in "Signs and Symptoms of a Troubled Employee" here (along with other supervisor training tip sheets and workplace wellness handouts.
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Typical Signs and Symptoms

Although not an exhaustive list, the signs and symptoms shown below fall into five categories, all of which fall under the umbrella heading of job performance. Job performance is not "quality of work" per se. Quality of work rather, is one part of job performance. Job performance can include anything within these six categories: 1) Quality of work; 2) Conduct (behavior) on the Job; 3) Attitude/demeanor on the Job 4) Attendance/absenteeism; 5) Availability 6) Appearance. The following list shows 40 lines, but there are about 60 distinct issues listed below when examined closely.

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