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Domestic violence is often treated as a shameful secret. But it threatens employees' safety and productivity. Here's how HR professionals fight back.
Yvette Cade excelled at her job with T-Mobile, where she was Maryland's top salesperson of the year for 2004. But her on-the-job achievement was at odds with the dark secret of a violent home life.
During Cade's four-year marriage to Roger Hargrave, her husband repeatedly choked and hit her. After she left him, he stalked her.
She feared for her life. But she feared losing her job more. That's why-even after a night of menacing threats-she went to work as scheduled on Oct. 10, 2005.
"I was afraid to miss work because I wanted to get out of this situation. I didn't want to be without a job," she says.
When Hargrave entered the T-Mobile store in Clinton, Md., that morning, Cade was working with a customer. She tried to ignore him. But he doused her with gasoline carried in a Sprite bottle and set her on fire.
"I felt the fire just ripping at my back," Cade recalls. She remembers seeing what she thought was f lesh dripping from her face. It was her hair melting in 1,500-degree flames.
"It hurt really bad. I was thinking I was going to die. I wanted to raise my daughter. She was 11."
Cade, then 31, was burned over 65 percent of her body. She lost parts of her ears. Her lip melted to her chin. She spent three months in intensive care and has endured 33 surgeries so far. Her body bears extensive scars. She has limited use of her hands. She says she'll never be able to work again.
While many employers don't believe domestic violence affects their companies, 21 percent of U.S. working adults say they have been victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives, according to a 2005 survey by the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence in Bloomington, Ill. Of those, 64 percent said the abuse affected their work. When that happens, productivity and morale can suffer. Health care costs go up. And, as the abuse escalates, experts say abuse victims and their co-workers could be at risk for physical harm.
Yet 70 percent of companies...