Bermuda Post

Saturday, Nov 02, 2024

Guide To Office Romance In 2023: When It Goes Wrong (And Right)

Guide To Office Romance In 2023: When It Goes Wrong (And Right)

Despite the delicate and potentially difficult consequences of love at work, office romances became common in the 20th Century as women moved into the workplace, and as jobs became a more significant part of people's lives and identities.
When Polly Arrowsmith needed to take time off from her IT company to care for her dying mother, she asked one of her workers to help out in her absence. She had one big task for him to take care of while she was gone: Let go an underperforming member of staff before a certain date, when redundancy payments would become mandatory.

He initially agreed, but failed to mention one thing: He was in a secret relationship with the employee.

When Arrowsmith returned to work a few months later, she was shocked to find that the firing hadn't happened. Her employee couldn't bring himself to fire the woman he loved — which meant that Arrowsmith needed to do it, and stump up thousands of pounds for a redundancy payout, too.

"It was a big betrayal of trust and I felt like an idiot because a lot of my staff knew and I didn't," said Arrowsmith.

Why we love office romances

Despite the delicate and potentially difficult consequences of love at work, office romances became common in the 20th Century as women moved into the workplace, and as jobs became a more significant part of people's lives and identities.

As many as one in four American workers had been in an office romance by the mid-1990s according to a poll quoted in a research paper by researchers then at the University of Northern Colorado. In 1995, the Los Angeles Times called office romances "a fact of company life," noting that AT&T had more than 8,000 married couples among its 250,000 US employees.

And not all office romances were within marriages — offices became the "danger zone" for illicit affairs, according to one relationship counsellor in her 2004 book. She wrote that in the years leading up to 1990, 38% of the cheating wives she treated were seeing someone from work. That figure rose to 50% in the 1990s.

It's not so different in the UK. A 2022 survey found that one in four admitted to having a "romantic encounter" with a colleague. "Collecting the stats made me realize it's not something that's isolated to a particular industry or sector, it happens everywhere," said Tina Chander, head of employment law at Wright Hassall, a law firm based in Royal Leamington Spa that compiled the numbers.

When the relationships go well, there may even be reasons for businesses to encourage them — research shows that finding love at work can make people enjoy their jobs more, improve morale and boost productivity.

This happy prevalence of office romances is echoed by Emma Hollingsworth, 36, who met her husband Richard, 37, on the third day of their accountancy graduate scheme in the City of London 15 years ago. "We were sat next to each other in a training course and I thought he was really funny," she said.

Working together over the next few years made her job far more pleasant, as the couple — who today have three children — could talk over their work instant message system and sync up their schedules. "We could get up, go to the gym together, have breakfast and then go into the office together," she said. "It made the commute so nice and you could have lunch together."

However, there are signs that the office romance might be fading in popularity. While 21% of Americans aged 50-64 met their partner at work, just 13% of people 18-29 did so, according to the Pew Research Center. Perhaps this is not a surprise, given today there are myriad ways to meet a date. Indeed, a fifth of the younger age group met their partner online, according to the study.

Cultural changes have shaken office relationships, as well. The MeToo movement challenged perceptions of what's acceptable in the workplace, and even consensual relationships are now deemed inappropriate on many occasions. Cases in point: McDonald's Corp. CEO Steve Easterbrook was fired in November 2019 over a consensual worker relationship as it violated company policy. In February 2022, CNN President Jeff Zucker quit after a years-long consensual relationship with a colleague was unveiled.

Think through the risks first

Horror stories about workplace romances are common enough that there are entire companies set up to help mitigate the business risk of trysts. Andy Coley runs Professional Boundaries, a training organization that does most of its business by mopping up after something has gone badly wrong in a relationship at work.

In one case, he was brought in by a charity to deal with the aftermath of an office love triangle: a woman married to one coworker — but pregnant with the baby of another.

"People can have affairs if [they] want, but when all three people work in the company, and one about to go off on maternity leave, then the two others left behind?" he said. "You could lose 20% of your workforce in one go from that love triangle."

The biggest piece of advice in his sessions is encouraging staff to think through the potential pitfalls of acting on an office crush, and making sure the connection is strong enough to warrant pursuing it. He asks them to consider questions of themselves, including: "What is it about this person that I'm really attracted to? And would it be true if we weren't working together?"

As long as they pass those tests, Coley isn't against dating someone you encounter at work — after all, that's how he met his wife.

Can I stop my employees dating?

Coley said that relationships at work are basically inevitable, given the long periods of time you spend together, and the occasionally difficult situations.

"In organizations with lots of staff you just will get relationships," he said. "I'm doing [a course] at a school in July with 120 staff and I guarantee you that some of the people in that room will be in relationships with each other."

If you're a boss concerned about the risks of workplace love, it might be tempting to wish that you could stamp them out entirely. But this is difficult to do legally in the UK, says Matt Gingell, an employment lawyer. "It's important to be aware of the Human Rights Act," he said. "People do have a right to privacy and family life, and employers need to be aware of that right."

But it might be "proportionate" to have a disclosure policy, where employees are asked to tell their bosses about significant intimate relationships with colleagues, as long the situation is handled carefully and fairly. He gave an example: "If a senior male manager was having an affair with the junior female employee, they can't be discriminatory in trying to force the woman to change [her job]."

Gingell added that any negative effects of office romances can be managed under existing policies. "If an employee's performance is suffering and is maybe because of, for example, relationship issues, then an employer is entitled to go down performance procedures," he said.

The difficulties of dating your employee — or your boss

Dating someone you manage, or someone who manages you, is very likely to cause problems, said Rachael Gunn, an operations consultant who works on conflict of interest policies, because it can lead to perceived unfairness.

"There have been instances where we've had to sit down with them and say because of the nature of the relationship you have it's not appropriate to continue in those roles, and we'd encourage them to come up with solutions," she said.

However, simply forcing people out of roles because of a relationship would be very difficult unless you could prove the unfairness, she said.

Arrowsmith's experience with her errant worker showed how far those issues of unfairness can go when a boss and an employee get together. But that might not matter in the long run for that couple, she said.

"They ended up getting married and they're still together as far as I'm aware," she said. "It must have been worth it if you find your life partner that way."
Newsletter

Related Articles

Bermuda Post
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
'I just lost it' Lowe’s worker fired after 13 years of employment for confronting thieves trying to steal $2K of merchandise
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
×