Office Romance Policies
According to Vault, as many as 20 percent of all people meet their future spouses in the workplace and nearly half have had a romantic relationship at work. This enormous number leads to big headaches for their companies. Handling office romances through clear policies, evenly applied consequences and proper documentation is the surest way for your company to avoid the most negative consequences of office love affairs.
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Clearly Written and Disseminated Policies
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Effective office romance policies are drafted clearly and disseminated effectively. Prohibit all relationships that even appear to cause a conflict of interest, and ensure employees understand that in permitted relationships their personal lives are to remain separate from their work lives. Relationships between superiors and subordinates should be disclosed to management, and the two involved parties should be placed in separate chains of command whenever possible. Employees should be clear on punishment for violation of romance policies, and those consequences should be uniformly and fairly applied. Businesses should have regular training on office romance policies, perhaps folded into sexual harassment training. Annual training plus a clear and available office romance policy protects businesses from lawsuits.
Established Relationships
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Sometimes employees are hired after establishing relationships with other employees; in other cases, romance just happens between two coworkers. Good office romance policies provide ways to work with established relationships. At a minimum, supervisors should speak with each participant separately to ensure the relationship is consensual and the meetings should be documented. Some companies require involved personnel to sign a "love contract" stating their relationship is consensual and does not involve business-related favors. In superior-subordinate relationships, advise both that their relationship is not permitted under your rules and that one will need to transfer or terminate employment within a specific time frame if the relationship does not end. Document everything, and always follow through with policy-required consequences.
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Romantic Relationship Endings
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When romantic relationships have been terminated, recognize that hard feelings might exist. As soon as tensions interfering with business relationships arise, intervene and let involved employees know that they are causing a problem that might have negative consequences for their future careers. Be clear about those consequences, and document your meeting. Terminate employment when necessary.
Uninvolved Coworkers
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An overlooked aspect of office romance problems is the uninvolved but angry coworker. Employees outside the romance sometimes observe real or imagined favoritism and other issues. Maintaining an open-door policy for employees to voice concerns defuses disgruntled employees and provides you with information you can use to ensure your office romance policies are adhered to.
Lawsuit Results
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Interestingly, courts often find lawsuits stemming from office romances and their aftermath have no grounds. For example, in Huebschen v. Department of Health and Social Services, an employee demoted by his jilted ex-girlfriend and supervisor sued on sex discrimination grounds. The court threw out the case because his cause for demotion was not his gender but rather his supervisor's ire at him personally. Nevertheless, any lawsuit, however groundless, costs businesses money. Just as good fences make good neighbors, strong, sensible and enforced office romance policies minimize the grounds upon which disgruntled employees may take legal issue with your business.
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References
- Photo Credit A businessman an businesswoman shaking hands image by sumos from Fotolia.com
