Companies Beset by Workers’ Legal Woes

Absent on the Job: To capture hearts and mind, managers often must confront an alarming problem: Their employees are using lots of time at work trying to sort out myriad personal legal problems. According to a study by insurance company Arag Group, about 70 percent of employees grapple with at least one legal issue during a 12-month period. Companies are losing out in productivity. On average, employees spend 57 work hours struggling with legal woes. One in four employees say worrying about legal difficulties degrades their job performance.

Most often, employees are beset by caring for family members, restoring bad credit, child-custody disputes, consumer fraud, buying homes, estate planning and other personal obligations, according to Des Moines, Iowa-based Arag’s survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. employees.