Another of today’s articles mentions the benefits of having a “best friend” in the workplace; however, there are situations where friendship can go a bit too far, stepping over the line into a romantic relationship.
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That’s certainly no surprise. After all, most employees spend about one-third of their work lives interacting with coworkers, often in intense settings where they’re working on projects they’re passionate about. It’s understandable that that passion can become personal.
How prevalent are these relationships? Each year Vault conducts an Office Romance Survey. In 2017, 57 percent of respondents indicated that they had had some type of romantic relationship, “from a quick fling to an ongoing long-term relationship.” Ten percent said they had met their spouse or partner at work. However, 41 percent indicated that they purposefully avoided the potential for a romantic relationship to develop.
Companies take different approaches to establishing policies or guidelines addressing these types of workplace relationships. According to SHRM, more than half (54 percent) of organizations do not have a written or verbal policy addressing workplace romance—the number that do, though, increased from 25 to 42 percent from 2005 to 2013.
Certain types of relationships are more likely to be prohibited than others. For instance, 99 percent of the companies that had a policy indicated that relationships between supervisors and direct reports were prohibited. The most common action that happens when a violation of the policy occurs, is transferring one of the employees into a different department.
Organizations and their HR advisors have some legitimate concerns about the impact of romantic relationships, according to the SHRM survey. These include:
- 84 percent who had concerns about real or perceived favoritism (when the senior member of the duo gives perks or promotions to the junior member, there’s likely to be resentment, and there’s the possibility of a lawsuit)
- 78 percent see the potential for claims of sexual harassment (this might happen, for example, if the couple breaks up and then one of the two fails to get a desired promotion or raise and claims harassment)
- 72 percent see the potential for retaliation if the relationship ends (as with the claims for harassment, retaliation claims sit waiting whenever the party who ended the relationship believes that a negative action was taken because of that)
- 57 percent see the potential for legal action against the organization (any of these situations can result in legal action–and the suits can be difficult to defend, especially if a negative action closely followed the breakup )
Having a policy, whether written or verbal, can help to minimize the potential for these impacts. Training and development and HR professionals, working with senior leadership, should consider the implications of such a policy based on the organization’s mission, vision, and values; demographics, and potential impacts on satisfaction and morale among employees.
There’s a fine line to draw here and not one that should be drawn hastily. That’s likely the reason why so many organizations have decided not to implement such a policy.