adminWORKPLACE romance is something which should not be encouraged.
Most of these cases usually end up in tears or charges of sexual har-assment.
It can kill team spirit at a company, lead to favouritism and leave some employees distracted from work.
We have seen such cases again and again and we have seen how it has ended in a firewall of disgrace and ugly headlines.
In recent weeks, former Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) chief executive, Mark Mabhudhu, has been hogging the head-lines.
There was suspicion, at the country’s leading diamond company, that his relationship with IT expert, Rutendo Mangatu, was more than just a business connection.
Both Mabhudhu and Mangatu dismissed those allegations with the latter even claiming this was the work of those who had sexually har-assed her since she joined the firm.
She threatened to expose the managers at the ZCDC whom she claimed had bombarded her with sexual harassment and now wanted to use their claim, that she was in a relationship with her boss, to di-vert attention from their evil deeds.
Last week, Mangatu quit the diamond firm with her resignation com-ing just days after Mabhudhu, who had been on suspension, was fired from his job.
Mangatu, an IT expert, had not only been promoted to ghost post, within the firm, but was now working directly from the office of the CEO.
This riled fellow employees, who felt that her meteoric rise was not according to merit but the favours she was getting from her boss.
Workplace romance is hard to manage, even if it involves consenting adults.
That is why most companies have codes of conducts which do not al-low such relationships at their workplaces.
The companies know the consequences of such relationships and the possibility that they can break morale among employees, especially when suspicions start emerging that some promotions were not on merit.
Workplace drama also has the potential to tarnish the image of the company.
Most of these cases end up spilling into the courts, especially when such affairs collapse in nasty fashion.
We have no evidence that the axed ZCDC boss and Mangatu were having an affair and we can’t accuse them of having had such a rela-tionship.
But, what is not questionable is that the way Mangatu rose to even get a post, which did not exist in the company’s structures, exposes them to suspicion that this wasn’t just a business relationship.
Their case isn’t helped too by the strange arrangement which then saw Mangatu ending up working directly from the office of her chief executive.
From being an IT expert, who should have been working in the IT of-fice, she ended up transforming herself into someone who was now an aide of her CEO.
It sends the wrong signals to the other workers and when she ended up in such places like Dubai, Botswana and South Africa, it depressed some of her fellow workmates.
So many things don’t add up in this saga and the two shouldn’t blame anyone but themselves.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter