What If the Employee Is Not the Problem?
When an employee begins struggling at work, the response often focuses on the individual. They may be offered access to the EAP, encouraged to take leave, sent information about resilience or asked whether something difficult is happening outside work.
Sometimes that is exactly where the support is needed. But not always.
Sometimes the person is responding to an environment that has become difficult to work in.
The workload may be unreasonable.
Expectations may be unclear.
Team behaviour may have become inappropriate.
Leadership may be inconsistent, or
Employees may be expected to absorb repeated change without enough information, control or support.
In those situations, treating the employee as the source of the problem will not resolve it.
It may make it worse.
The same signs can point to very different problems
HR and People and Culture teams are often the first to see the broader warning signs.
Absences begin to rise and engagement falls.
Complaints become more frequent.
A previously reliable employee becomes withdrawn or starts missing deadlines.
Conflict appears in a team, while stronger performers quietly take on more work to keep things moving.
These signs matter, but they do not necessarily reveal the cause.
An employee who has become disengaged may be experiencing a difficult personal situation. They may also be working under a manager who provides little direction, changes priorities without warning or avoids addressing harmful team behaviour.
A decline in performance may reflect reduced personal capacity. It may also be the result of competing priorities, inadequate resources or a role that has expanded beyond what one person can reasonably deliver.
The visible symptoms can look almost identical, but the right response is completely different.
When support places responsibility on the wrong person
Many workplace wellbeing initiatives are useful. EAP services, flexible working arrangements, mental health resources and resilience education can all play an important role in supporting employees.
But they become problems when they become the automatic response to every sign of workplace difficulty.
Resilience training will not make an unmanageable workload sustainable.
An EAP referral will not resolve inappropriate behaviour inside a team.
A wellbeing day will not fix poor leadership.
Encouraging someone to practise self-care will not give them clearer priorities, adequate resources or more control over their work.
When the real cause isn’t addressed, the employee may feel that they are being asked to cope more effectively with a workplace problem the organisation should be addressing.
What was intended as support can begin to feel like blame.
HR needs more than a general sense that something is wrong
HR professionals often know when a team is not functioning well. They hear the concerns. They see the absence data, engagement results and repeated requests for support. They may notice that problems are concentrated around a particular manager, function or period of organisational change.
The harder part is turning that concern into evidence decision-makers can act on.
One complaint may be dismissed as a relationship issue.
One resignation may be treated as an isolated event.
One manager may explain the situation as a performance problem.
Without a clearer picture, it can be difficult to show whether the organisation is dealing with an individual concern, a leadership capability gap, a team issue or a wider problem with workload and workplace design.
That distinction matters because it determines what should happen next.
Look for patterns, not only incidents
You need a wider view to understand what is really affecting employees,
Individual symptoms are important, but they are only one source of information. HR may also need to look at where absence, turnover, grievances and performance concerns are occurring. It may need to compare employee feedback across teams or consider whether concerns increased following a restructure, leadership change or sustained period of heavy workload.
The aim is not to gather data for the sake of it.
It is to understand the conditions in which the problem is occurring.
Is the issue limited to one employee, or are others experiencing something similar?
Are expectations clear and realistic?
Do people have enough control over how they complete their work?
Are inappropriate behaviours being addressed?
Do managers have the capability to give direction, provide feedback and respond to issues early?
Are organisational systems helping people perform, or making their work unnecessarily difficult?
Knowing the answers from an employee’s perspective moves the conversation beyond symptoms and towards likely causes.
The intervention has to match the cause
Once the underlying factors are clearer, HR can recommend a more targeted response.
If workload is the issue, the answer may involve capacity, priorities, resources or role design.
If inappropriate behaviour is affecting the team, clearer standards, training, facilitated conversations or formal action may be needed.
If poor leadership is contributing to the problem, the manager may need practical development, coaching and accountability rather than another general reminder about employee wellbeing and psychosocial safety.
If employees are struggling because of unclear responsibilities or decision-making, role clarity and stronger operating rhythms may create more improvement than individual support alone.
But how do you actually know what the cause is?
It’s critical to understand enough of the full picture to provide the right support to the right people.
Evidence creates a stronger case for action
HR is often expected to fix problems occurring inside teams it does not directly manage.
It may also need to persuade senior leaders to invest in an intervention, change a system or address the behaviour of a capable but ineffective manager.
A general concern is rarely enough. Clear mapping helps show where the issue is occurring, what factors may be contributing to it and which intervention is most likely to create change.
It turns the conversation from: “People in this team seem unhappy.”
Into: “The evidence suggests workload, unclear expectations and leadership behaviour are all contributing to the current pattern. Here is the response most likely to address it.”
That is a much stronger basis for action.
Find out what is really affecting your people
Not every employee who is struggling needs more resilience.
Sometimes they need a workplace problem to be identified and addressed.
In our upcoming free live workshop, What People Need From Work When Life Gets Hard, special guest Gabriela Teleasa, developer of Work & Therapy will introduce a practical mapping approach that helps HR and organisational leaders identify the factors affecting employees and determine what kind of intervention is most likely to gain traction.
You will learn how to move beyond the visible symptoms, gather clearer evidence and build a stronger case for directing the right support to the right teams.
What People Need From Work When Life Gets Hard
Date: Thursday, 27th August 2026
Time: 11:00AM AWST | 1:00PM AEST