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Talent Management Perspectives

Published February 2010

Employers, Do You Know How to Handle Office Romances?

  Deanna Hartley

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, love may be in the air, but there is still much debate over whether there is room for it in the workplace.

One in four employees has engaged in a romantic relationship with a co-worker, according to a recent poll by Workplace Options, a provider of work-life services. Still, nearly 90 percent of those polled said public displays of affection in the workplace are unacceptable.

While office romances could prove to be beneficial in certain instances, looking for love in the workplace isn't always appropriate, explained Dean Debnam, CEO of Workplace Options.

"If you are on the same level but in different departments of a company — if you're not interacting every day, you're not working together, you're not co-workers, but you have the same place of work and you're enjoying what you do and you share common interests — that's one place where it could be beneficial," he said. "Outside of that, it's hard to imagine how a workplace romance is going to enhance your work-life experience that is not offset by the negative consequences."

Whether it's between peers or between a supervisor and subordinate, trying to avoid getting romantically involved with a co-worker is an employee's best bet, Debnam said.

An employee who engages in a relationship with a higher-ranking individual in the company runs the risk of attracting jealous co-workers who may assume the employee's promotions were not duly earned. On the other end of the spectrum, a supervisor who dates a subordinate could be accused of showing favoritism.

While some negative repercussions of employees dating — such as co-workers viewing public displays of affection as inappropriate or distracting — may be seemingly harmless, others could result in legal ramifications, such as sexual harassment claims for both the employee involved in the relationship as well as the employer.

Employers can evade legal liability if they were unaware of the romantic relationship in question or if they took appropriate steps to prevent or correct any problems.

"The time to take an appropriate action is whenever anyone talks about any degree of discomfort — it doesn't matter how small it is — [if something is reported,] the company must take some action because it has a duty to every employee to provide a safe working environment," Debnam said.

"For instance, if [employee X's] peer in the company starts putting pressure about going out or getting together, and employee X is uncomfortable with it, that can be a reason to discipline the person that's being more aggressive," he said.

Many employers don't pay sufficient attention to such warning signs — and this type of neglect could be expensive.

"If employers handle it wrong, all sorts of other claims could come about, such as EEOC claims and loss of pay claims — those can become very expensive both from a legal fee point of view and from payouts," he said.

Employers can take proactive steps to keep office romances under control, such as implementing companywide sexual harassment training sessions for employees.

"Part of the sexual harassment training is teaching employees about recognizing and respecting other people's boundaries and about appropriate conversation and behavior at work — those are just basic things that need to be reinforced," Debnam said.

Another step is to craft a clearly worded company policy on the topic.

"Be totally unambiguous about what the company's expectations are and what are the dos and don'ts in the corporation," he said.     

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