Love is in the air at this time of year. While blossoming romances may set pulses racing for the couples involved, they may also raise blood pressure for business owners or managers like you, if they are workplace relationships.
Because for every fairy-tale where they live happily ever after, there are many messy break-ups that wreak havoc far and wide.
In a moment, we’ll suggest some ways in which you can create a culture which reduces the risk of office flings gone wrong. First though, from jealous colleagues to embarrassing emails and disgruntled exes, we share a few tales of office-romance woe from the web.
…Three’s a crowd
One person confessed how he and his line manager secretly started dating. After getting a little carried away in the office kitchen, a colleague walked in on them. To make matters worse, that colleague also had a crush on the line manager. In a fit of jealousy he shopped them to all their colleagues in a group email.
Knowing she had another admirer, the manager then took to flirting with him as a response to arguments with her boyfriend. Suffice to say the relationship didn’t last, and there was a lot of ill-feeling in the workplace.
She pressed “reply all”!
This one is another secret dating scenario. In this case we know that the company took a dim view to office romances thanks to the impact it had on productivity. Picking up on an innocent but unfortunate turn of phrase from her boss in a team email, our Juliet sent her Romeo a smutty private comment. The problem was she “replied all” by mistake, thus exposing the relationship to everyone in the most cringeworthy fashion.
An imbalance of power
A senior manager openly dated one of his direct employees for a year. When the relationship broke down the woman requested to be moved to another team to give them space. However, any sideways move for her would involve a pay cut. She felt this was unfair and discriminatory, given that her former partner was allowed to continue without impact on his career. A complex remedial process had to be followed which, while leading to a satisfactory outcome, did direct resources and attention away from normal operations and could have ended up in a costly tribunal discrimination claim .
Creating a positive culture and framework to respond
Some employers choose to ban relationships outright, but this is difficult, awkward and time-consuming to police. It is likely to lead to unwanted outcomes at some point. The simple fact is that when people spend as much time in each other’s company as they do in workplaces, relationships will happen.
A better approach, we would normally advise, is to have very clear policies about acceptable behaviour. You may choose to have a workplace relationship policy. Naturally the onus would be on you and any senior colleagues to lead by example, creating a positive workplace culture.
Starting points
You will have your own thoughts on what is and isn’t acceptable within your company, but here are a few basic principles which can be considered a starting point.
- Be particularly wary of relationships where there is an imbalance of power – such as between managers and their employees. As shown in the example above, this can lead to problems around discrimination (direct or indirect), as well as dissatisfaction amongst the wider team who may experience real or perceived bias.
- As in any setting, mutual consent is a fundamental part of a relationship. Where this isn’t present, sexual harassment is a risk and could lead to much anguish and ultimately, for you, an employment tribunal.
- Workplaces are professional spaces and personal lives should not spill over into them even if a couple work together – be that animosity or amorous behaviour.
Whether a relationship is a long-term success or ends abruptly there will probably be consequences for the company. This could include losing staff, rearranging teams, managing conflicts of interest, harassment, bullying and hostile working environments.
All of these need to be considered when devising a policy so that you can manage fluid, complex situations effectively.
Need further help?
When a romance stands the test of time it is a happy outcome, but in a workplace setting this does not happen very often. Make sure you and your managers are equipped to handle every situation by giving us a call for help with your policies or an ongoing case.
