Whether you like to or not, work place romances happen so it is best to be prepared before they happen.  In a recent survey, 27 percent of workers stated that they were open to having a romantic relationship with a co-worker.  However, given that 22% of Americans met their spouse at work, the actual rate of employees open to a work place relationship is either significantly higher or those that do have a high rate of ending in marriage.  So whether you have company policies about these types of relationships, no matter how strict the rules are, these romances will happen.  Therefore, it is best to address this issue and have a well documented policy in place before you experience any problems.

How you address the issue is completely up to you.  You can ban office relationships altogether, but as noted above this will not stop them from happening.  So it is best to establish certain ground rules for them.  First of all, employees should be required to report any relationships to human resources.  The primary reason for this is that two employees in a relationship should not be working together.  By requiring employees to disclose their relationships it allows the company to reassign one or both as necessary to avoid any problems that could affect the work place and your other employees. Depending on the size of the company this could be difficult, however, supervisors and subordinates should never be allowed to be in a relationship. 

In the end, work place romances can get very messy so be prepared.  If not, the problem could easily spread beyond the two employees directly involved to others that they work with.  The result could be low morale, decreased productivity and potentially a costly lawsuit for sexual harassment or discrimination.

Contact Total Team Solutions for more information on how to properly prepare a policy to address romantic relationships at your company. 

TOTAL TEAM SOLUTIONS is a full service human resource outsourcing company providing payroll, benefit administration and human resource advisory services to small businesses just like yours.  You can reach us at 800-836-9678 or check out our website at www.ttspro.com.