The Valentine’s Edition: Workplace Romance

Posted on February 13, 2013 in Consulting

Employers must embrace reality: workplace romance is inevitable.  The workplace is the number one place for married persons to meet an affair partner says Dr. Shirley Glass in her book: Not ‘Just Friends’.  Despite this, a whopping 72% of companies surveyed have no written policy on dating according to a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Workplace Romance Survey.  This high percentage is alarming because, while employers cannot police sex out of the workplace, they can develop smart policies to keep workplace romance from turning into human resource nightmares.

Before I discuss my suggested workplace rules for dating, I must share that I have close friends who met their spouse at work.  And many of whom have now been married for years, have kids, and truly are living happily ever after.   My experience appears consistent with available data.  In the SHRM survey, 55 percent of the HR professionals responding said that marriage is the most likely outcome of the office romances they observed. Those are, of course, the success stories.

The flip side is the romances I learn about as a company’s lawyer.  A good rule of thumb: lawyers usually get called only when things have gone awry.  Rarely have I received a call from a client about a workplace relationship that ends like a fairy tale.  Instead, I hear about “romances” that end with claims of sexual harassment, paramour favoritism, and other related allegations of discrimination. 

I suggest below a few policies employers should adopt to avoid workplace romances becoming workplace problems.

Someone Must Quit

The successful relationships that began at work have one common trend.  At some point early in the relationship, one employee chose to resign so that the romance could continue without workplace complications.  No one had to ask the couple to make a choice.  Being true professionals, the decision was made by the couple in the best interest of the relationship at work and outside work.   If a dating couple seems a little slow in making this decision, a polite nudge from a manager is probably in order.

Encourage Disclosure

A couple should disclose a workplace relationship to management before the employer learns of the relationship in other ways.  I am aware of some embarrassing accounts of how office affairs surfaced.  A favorite example is a voice message intended for the paramour but left inadvertently on another’s phone.  Another unfortunate example is a notification from building security of revealing video footage.  Some of the email revealing a workplace romance has made me blush; nothing like what you would read on a Hallmark card.  

Supervisor-Subordinate Dating: A Taboo

Romance between a superior and subordinate is a whole different category.  The power to influence pay, benefits, vacations, and work schedules complicates dating within different pay-grades.  Employers should simply ban (in writing) dating among supervisors and subordinates.

Avoid Hiring Spouses

A client of mine employed a human resource manager – the only HR professional with the company — who was married to a line supervisor.  The supervisor was the subject of a series of complaints.  Imagine the difficulty the company had with unbiased investigation of the complaints.  The Company adopted a different protocol to avoid the appearance of bias, with little success, and at added costs.  Worse yet, a credible complaint against the supervisor might have been squelched for fear of retribution and not surface until it was too late for corrective action.  The lesson is simple: avoid hiring married couples.

I must end this newsletter wishing my wife of 16+ years a Happy Valentine’s Day and by running to the Hallmark store before all the good cards are long gone. 

 

 


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