Workplace Relationship Policies

As the majority of a person’s week is spent with their work colleagues, there is a good chance that someone may become involved in a romantic relationship in or around the office environment. This is something that is happening more frequently than in the past.

However, for employers, the notion of their workers becoming romantically involved with one another can pose issues if they are not managed appropriately and could have a detrimental impact on the business. For example, if a relationship ends badly, it could result in a situation becoming untenable, especially where one person is responsible for managing the other.

As a result, it is advisable for employers to put in place a relationship policy for the sensitive topic of workplace romances that can help employees understand what is expected of them when entering into a romantic relationship with a colleague and provide safeguards for businesses. Below, we have answered several questions concerning workplace relationship policies, including how difficult it is to put in place a policy and what to include in it.

How difficult would it be to set up a workplace relationship policy?

In most organisations, it would be unrealistic to try to ban employees from becoming romantically involved with colleagues. In fact, as alluded to above, statistics show that a significant percentage of relationships start in the workplace.

There can be real risks though – from workplace romances such as conflicts of interest to perceived favouritism. There is also a danger that romantic attention might be unwanted and that then could become an issue of sexual harassment.

It is therefore a good idea for employers to mention these issues in their policies and to have procedures in place. This can be easy to set up as policies do not need to be long and complicated and once in place, employees need to be briefed on them in outline.

Would a relationship policy contravene human rights?

Banning relationships outright would not be fair. However, having a sensitively worded policy that seeks to balance the rights of employees to have a private life, with relevant organisational interests is unlikely to be an infringement.

What could be included in a workplace relationship policy?

We would recommend that policies set out what would be considered to be sexual harassment and give those who feel they are receiving unwelcome sexual or romantic attention a route to get this dealt with.

For consensual relationships, we recommend that the policy includes a requirement for this to be reported to the employer so that consideration can be given to any conflicts of interest and if necessary, line management responsibilities or work can be reallocated if necessary or appropriate.

How might this impact employee engagement, how staff feel about work, etc?

As long as reported relationships are treated sensitively and in confidence, where possible, employees should not feel disgruntled about the requirement to report. In fact, in our experience, bad feeling most often arises in these cases where other employees are affected by the relationship between two colleagues because they feel that there is favouritism or some conflict of interest at play. Having a policy and taking steps to address this will help to avoid these issues in the future.