Is it Amore or More Problems? Issues with Office Romances

 

Today's article is about employee romances and is inspired by this article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

We've all either experienced or witnessed work romances. It's fairly common - a July 2023 Forbes article explains just how common certain behaviors in the workplace are, as illustrated by this chart:

The Forbes article is great. Here's a chart that shows how workplace relationships affects people:

And finally, here's a chart that shows some of the effects of workplace relationships. This one is the most relevant to our discussion below:

The Richmond Times-Dispatch Article

The article details a case in which a county commissioner in Georgia discriminated against her subordinate when she fired him after he ended their sexual relationship. The judge in the case ordered the county to pay over $900,000 to the fired ex-employee, which was - to add insult to injury - brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on his behalf. In other words, he didn't even have to pay an attorney to bring the claim.

The terminated employee claimed that he was hired - at more than double his then-current salary - as the county commissioner's Chief of Staff after they started a secret sexual relationship. He alleged that he was forced to "submit" to her on a whim and he feared losing his job if he ended the relationship. He further alleged that she forced him to remain exclusive with him and then put trackers on his vehicle when he began dating other women.

Personal Experience

While working as corporate counsel, I have had a number of run-ins with office romances. I'll briefly detail two, while leaving out identifying information. The first situation involved a set of employees, who were each married to other people, beginning a clandestine affair in the office. Neither party supervised the other. The problem began when their coworkers began to run into them in compromising positions, culminating in a particularly embarrassing discovery of the two of them in a stairwell.

The other example only was a problem when it became a problem. In this situation, a male employee began wooing and dating a female employee in a different part of the company. So far so good. Well, it turns out that the male employee had a fiancee that the female employee didn't know about. In fact, no one in the office did. At least, no one knew that he had a fiancee until she showed up at the office seeking the female employee and threatening her. It got ugly.

Takeaways

I am convinced that there is no way to stop office romances. When people spend large amounts of time together, things happen. That's life.

But there are ways to protect your company. For example, having strict reporting policies is important, including defining a failure to report as a terminable office. Companies can also have rules against chain-of-command romance. If things pop up (and they often do), have policies that dictate that supervision of the subordinate - and career evaluations - be transferred elsewhere in the company.

I've been there. I've dealt with these issues on numerous occasions. We can help you get set up to deal with these issues before they pop up. And if there has been a problematic event, we can help you get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

 

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.