Interoffice Romance: Stupid Idea?
I recently stumbled across an article on interoffice romance and was quite shocked at the bad advice. The overall advice from Ms. Reynolds was to, “Check your company’s policy regarding fraternization.” In one instance the issue of dating your supervisor was detailed as, “Co-workers may perceive this as blatant favoritism and this could create a situation that could threaten your credibility.” I am not trying to say that Ms. Reynolds advice is all bad, but seriously incomplete with implications to go ahead after a simple review of company policy. I will say her advice on dating a supervisor is bad and should not be followed. Do not date your supervisor or if you are the supervisor do not date your subordinates that is just stupid and asking for trouble.
Potential Legal Liability for On the Job Romance
First I am not an attorney, but I’ve read a lot of peer reviewed journal articles on sexual harassment, operational management, management, human resources, and organization back in grad school. Credibility and favoritism will be the least of you, your supervisor, and your company’s concern when a disgruntled co-worker files a sex discrimination lawsuit against all the aforementioned parties. What was that you say, lawsuit? You’d better believe it’s possible depending on the situation. Dating on the job has significant risks. Interoffice romances can and do end badly leaving co-workers and the company to deal with a couple’s issues. Companies and co-workers do not like dealing with such issues; hence polices against interoffice romances.
Job Loss and Rehire Challenge
Imagine if you will that you are crazy enough to date a subordinate or date your supervisor. Then imagine that your supervisor must interview candidates for a new promotion position on his/her team. Are you going to try to interview for this position? I am not attorney but a disgruntled employee who does not get that position may have cause to seek legal action against the company, you, and your supervisor. Oh and any other candidate that did not get the position may bring their own case. Here is a twist you might not have considered: your company seeks damages against you for your actions. That would get really interesting if you have a binding arbitration clause in your contract. I mean if I were the company I would try to shift as much of that liability onto the people who decided to date. Imagine if a company had a clear policy on interoffice relationships with a binding arbitration clause. You could get really screwed crossing those lines.
Let us say your company was successfully sued for sexual discrimination since your supervisor interviewed a bunch of people, but either you or someone else you know and favor got the job. As a result of the lawsuit your company terminates you. So let us look at this shall we: you have a potential judgment (in the hundreds of thousands to millions) against you, you have no job, and it is public record why you lost your job. Think about the public record and possible judgment for a moment. Do you really think those juicy tidbits of personal information will not be found by the credit agencies such as TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian?
Adverse Side Effects
On the note of your company getting sued let us imagine that your company is a small firm with around 50 to 80 employees. For the sake of argument let us say the company got hit with a significant judgment from the suing employee. If the company does not go under it may have to file for bankruptcy, if the law permits it to do such an action. Either way your co-workers bear your unintended consequences in the form of job loss due to costs of the lawsuit.
Alternative Solutions to Dating on the Job
In the advent of social media networking there are plenty of opportunities to pursue dating outside of the workplace environment. According to an earlier post with the Socialnomics video 1 out of 8 couples that were married in the U.S. met online. My advice would be to avoid dating on the job. If you do meet someone that you just can not resist on the job then either request a transfer to another department at a minimum or quit your job and pursue dating said person at that time.
Conclusion
Thus to recap interoffice romances are a high risk liability for everyone involved, you, your romantic partner, your company, and your co-workers. Dating a co-worker would be a challenge and difficult enough, but dating a supervisor is just plain stupid. As I said before losing credibility and being seen as a favoritism cretin is potentially the least of your concerns. Given these factors why risk your job, the legal liabilities, and the difficulty of getting a new job with this issue following you? Why engage the risk when there are suitable alternatives available?
Update Clarification
I wanted to clarify that not all dating on the job should be completely restricted. To clarify it probably is not a serious issue if you work for a large company and your position is in one section and your romantic partner is in another department. In smaller companies this may be true as well. However, dating between echelons, or management dating non-management personnel, would be potentially risky regardless of separation by departments. I prefer to err on the side of caution and simply recommend not dating fellow co-workers.
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.