by Susan M. Heathfield
What's love got to do with it? Quite a lot, actually. To
answer Tina Turner's proverbial question, I checked out current research on
workplace romance. If it's just about sex, a dalliance, an extramarital affair,
or a relationship to move an individual up the career ladder, coworkers and
companies tend to frown on love relationships in the office. If a couple is
genuinely serious about dating and building a relationship, popular opinion is
more favorable.
After all, where can you meet that special someone anymore?
With the amount of time people spend working, and the increasing percentage of
women in the workforce, where else is a couple to meet?
Traditional meeting
places such as church, the neighborhood, family events, and leisure time activities do not present the
same pool of candidates as they did in earlier times. In contrast, the office
provides a pre-selected pool of people who share at least one important
interest.
People who work together also live within a reasonable dating
distance, and share a location, so they see each other on a daily basis.
Coworkers in similar jobs may also be approximately the same age, and share
similar interests both inside and outside of work.
Workplace Romance Policy
Workplace romance is a worry to employers, but it is not the
major faux pas, it may have been in earlier years. In fact, a Society for
Human Resource Management (SHRM) Workplace Romance Survey found that most
companies surveyed do not even have a formal, written, romance policy.
Of the
617 members who responded to the SHRM survey, 72 percent do not have a written
policy; 14 percent say they have an unwritten, but well understood, norm in
their workplace. Thirteen percent do have a policy.
In the SHRM survey, 55 percent of the HR professionals
responding said that marriage is the most likely outcome of the office romances
they have experienced. Other studies have reported a higher level of
productivity in dating couples at work.
Respondents who
discourage, or the seven percent who forbid, dating in their workplace, cite
concerns with potential sexual harassment claims, retaliation and workplace
disharmony if the relationship should end. They are concerned about potentially lowered morale and the productivity of both the dating couple and their coworkers.
Research on Dating, Sex, and Romance at Work
In the Journal of Management, May-June, 1998 issue, Gary N.
Powell summarized the research that has been conducted over the past few
decades about office romance. (He finds that this research has not been pursued
with enough vigor by organizational behavior scholars, by the way. He says he
reviewed the "meager scholarly literature on the subject to date.")
He found that "at some times, workplace
romances present a threat to organizational effectiveness through their
negative effects on participants and coworkers. At other times, workplace
romances enhance workplace effectiveness through their positive effects on
participants.
"Two kinds of romances have the most damaging effect on group
morale and organizational effectiveness, (a) hierarchical romances in which one
participant directly reports to the other, and (b) utilitarian romances in
which one participant "satisfies personal/sexual needs in exchange for
satisfying the other participant's task related and/or career-related needs."
Additionally, "Forty-one percent of employed Americans ages 25-40 have admitted to having engaged in an office romance, according to a joint survey sponsored by Glamour magazine and Lawyers.com." The study states further that respondents had the most problems with romance when a manager dated a reporting staff person.
In an SHRM white paper, Andrea C. Poe, an HR
freelance writer, found that adulterous affairs were a problem in some
workplaces. From a recent Vault.com survey of several thousand employers and
employees, she states that inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace is
also common on company time and at company locations.
Find out what the Human Resources professional needs to do about an office romance.
| 