When Cupid strikes
Should you (can you) prevent workplace romances?
By Johanna Church
From the Feb. 2000 CBIA News
Don’t look now, but Cupid is perched by the copier, waiting to
strike. Love is in the air-filtration system. Who can resist getting
caught up in the romance of Valentine’s Day?
“I think you’re only asking for trouble,” says Marcia
Keegan, counsel at Wiggin & Dana of Hartford. She’s talking
about when love (or even just the early dances of love) strikes in the
workplace.
Office romances have long been the cause of human resource directors’ headaches.
A love affair between two co-workers can cause morale issues among the
other workers, opportunities for gossip among staff and, even worse,
legal problems.
But nowadays it’s tough not to be sympathetic toward employees
caught up in an office romance. After all, work is often the easiest
place to meet someone.
“Where do you see people the most? It’s at work,” says
Karen Ruhlemann, recruiter for J.M. Ney Co. of Bloomfield.
“A lot of us work 10- to 12-hour days,” adds Alice DeTora,
an attorney with Robinson & Cole of Hartford.
But dealing with employees’ interoffice relationships is “a
choice employers have to make,” DeTora says. “It’s
a fine line between an employee’s right to free association and
privacy, and an employer’s legitimate business concerns,” such
as the need to prevent sexual harassment claims.
Keegan adds, “I’ve heard employees say that they don’t
feel their dating is any business of the employer. But the employee made
it the employer’s business by bringing a personal issue into the
workplace.”
No-dating policies vary
DeTora says she has seen company dating policies run from one extreme
to the other. Some completely ban all employees from dating in the workplace, “which
doesn’t work because people do it anyway,” she says. Others
simply “don’t deal with it at all.” That could open
up “hidden traps,” she says.
Most company policies generally fall somewhere around the middle, DeTora
says — for example, not allowing employees who are dating or married
to be in direct supervisory relationships.
Keegan says companies should at the least have a no-dating policy for
supervisors and the employees they oversee. Charges of favoritism, disruption
of work, gossip and the inability to work together after the relationship
goes sour are just a few of the relatively minor problems that can crop
up from a supervisor/subordinate affair, she says.
Cynthia Ambrose, human resource director for Integrated Physicians Management
Services in East Hartford, says her company does not have a formal no-dating
policy, but does prohibit employees from supervising their relatives,
including spouses.
“I can understand how [an office romance] could be damaging if
a relationship got to a point where it was really serious,” Ambrose
says. But, “I don’t want to feel like I’m running a
prison.”
An office romance can get particularly sticky if it involves someone
in a human resources function. Even with its fairly liberal views on
employee dating, J.M. Ney does have a policy that prohibits anyone in
a human resources position from dating employees, primarily for conflict
of interest reasons, says Ruhlemann.
Sexual harassment concerns
Of course, workplace romances can stir up more serious problems, such
as sexual harassment claims. “One party can claim the advances
were not welcomed, or after the relationship sours one person can change
their story as to whether the advances were welcomed,” says Keegan.
She adds that the sexual harassment issue usually pertains to supervisors
who have dated subordinates. When co-worker relationships dissolve, Keegan
says, sexual harassment claims generally are not an issue.
Not all companies have had bad experiences with employees’ personal
relationships, however. Ruhlemann described several relationships currently
going on at J.M. Ney.
“Our facility is large enough that you can avoid the other person
if you have to,” Ruhlemann says. “We’re a manufacturing
facility. It’s not like in an office, where it could be difficult.
Here, even if two people worked side by side and their relationship ended,
the machinery is very loud. You wouldn’t even have to talk to each
other.”
When a relationship does work out and a couple ends up getting married,
issues such as alleged favoritism and co-worker morale problems can still
occur. For that and other reasons, many companies have a no-nepotism
policy, which attorney Keegan says “is a good employee relations
tool.” In these cases, one of the employees might be transferred
to a different position or asked to resign.
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