When Did We Decide Divorce Doesn't Belong at Work?

Given the increasing awareness around women's health, I'd hazard a guess your company probably now has a menopause policy. Maybe a fertility treatment policy too. There's almost certainly an EAP with a mental health helpline. And if someone loses a close family member, bereavement leave kicks in automatically.

All of this is progress. Real, meaningful progress that provides much needed help to employees navigating some really challenging phases in their lives. So why is it, when one in three UK marriages ends in divorce, one of the most financially and emotionally destabilising experiences a person can go through, is the workplace response still largely: nothing?

The numbers are hard to ignore

Divorce and relationship breakdown are estimated to cost the UK economy up to £50 billion every year. That figure accounts for pressure on the NHS, the criminal justice system and housing but a significant portion of it lands directly on British businesses, in ways that rarely get named for what they are.

Reports show that employees going through a divorce can experience a 40% drop in productivity. A year later, that figure is still down by 20%. And around 9% of employees have left their jobs or watched a colleague do so as a direct result of a relationship breakdown. And the impact doesn't stay contained: typically, co-workers absorb a 4% productivity dip of their own, through distraction and the quiet emotional labour of supporting someone who's struggling.

These aren't soft, unmeasurable costs. They show up in output, in errors, in attrition and in recruitment spend. So why aren't businesses seeing the acute need to provide divorce support in the workplace?

Why has divorce been left off the wellbeing agenda?

Partly because it feels intensely personal and businesses have historically been reluctant to wade into employees' private lives. Partly because divorce doesn't sit neatly under a protected characteristic the way disability or pregnancy does, so there's no legal lever pushing organisations to act. And partly, perhaps, because no one has quite worked out what "support" even looks like in this context.

But consider what we already accept as standard. We recognise that menopause affects concentration and confidence at work. We acknowledge that fertility treatment is emotionally gruelling and deserves flexibility and compassion. We understand that grief doesn't clock out at 5pm.

Divorce, which typically involves financial upheaval, legal proceedings, house moves, renegotiated childcare, profound identity shifts and months or years of sustained stress, somehow hasn't made it into that same conversation.

The cost of that silence falls unevenly

It's also worth noting that divorce doesn't affect everyone equally. Women, in particular, often absorb a disproportionate share of the professional consequences. Now there's a surprise (!) Increased childcare responsibilities lead many to reduce their hours, turn down promotions, or step back from career ambitions they'd been building for years. The "divorce gap" in earnings is well-documented and disappointingly it tends to widen, not close, over time.

For organisations that have invested in gender equity and women's career progression, here's an uncomfortable truth: that investment has a leak. The pipeline you're working to build can quietly drain away during a period of personal crisis that nobody at work is equipped or encouraged to acknowledge.

What does "good" even look like here?

This isn't about HR becoming a counselling service, or managers being expected to navigate complex personal situations without support. It's about creating the conditions where someone going through a divorce doesn't have to pretend they're fine, doesn't have to use annual leave for every court appointment and knows there's somewhere to turn beyond Googling at midnight.

Some organisations are beginning to explore this through EAP referrals to specialist divorce coaches, flexible working adjustments during acute periods and training line managers to have better conversations when someone discloses a separation.

It's not complicated. But it does require someone deciding that it matters.

A question worth asking

If an employee came to you tomorrow and said "I'm going through a divorce and I'm really struggling" what would your organisation actually offer them? If the honest answer is "not much"  then that's a gap that is worth closing.

I'd love to know: does your organisation have anything in place for this? And if you're working in HR or people leadership, is this something that's on your radar that you'd like to learn more about?

Drop your thoughts in the comments or send me an email: sophie@sophie-buck.com.