Of office romance and its dire consequences – an HR perspective

Labour Matters with Freemen Pasurai

In his book the Lion and the Jewel, Wole Soyinka the Nigerian play writer wrote that romance is the sweetening of the soul. True to this there is no soul in this world that can live without this sweetener called romance whose ubiquitous presence sometimes slips into the workplace. Some say love knows no boundaries and so is romance. How far true can this be in the world of work since the power of love is irresistible and they are no obvious places where one finds love?

The song ‘Flying Without Wings’ by Westlife gives a true depiction of love as it states that ‘one thing that makes it all complete, you’ll find it in the strangest places, places you never knew it could it be’.

Is the work place a forbidden place to find love or its one of the strangest places to find it?

Office romance is inevitable just like change itself. As we all know, whenever a group of people meet, the concept of natural selection takes place. With the advent of more singles in the work place, one unforeseen consequence is the rise of workplace romance, strings attached or no strings attached.

To make it worse, the increase in layoffs by companies inspired by the July 17, 2015 Supreme Court ruling has also manifested in unholy alliances in the form of office romance. Can these reasons provide full explanations as to why office romance takes place? Not at all, it will rather be a parochial approach to this broad subject which has not received much attention by local researchers. Most probably these are just microcosmic insights.

What is office romance?

Generally office romance is considered as a relationship that takes place between two employees of an organization where sexual attraction is existent, affection is communicated and both employees recognize that the relationship is more than professional or platonic.

Office romance is common. Honest men will confess to have approached and flirted with one or two female workmates and honest women will confess to have had a fling. So why do employees engage in workplace romance? Is it authentic love, the need for job security or satisfying personal egos? I have learnt that motivations differ according to gender!

The working class spends between 40-48 hours a week at work and they only afford to spend a full day away from the workplace during weekends. For those who work overtime the hours are more. This spells doom for their social life as social intercourse with people outside the workplace becomes limited while on the other hand making the workplace a fertile territory to cultivate seeds of love.

A common Shona axiom articulates that ‘mbudzi inodya payakasungirirwa’ (a goat will graze where it’s tied). This narrative gives an alternative explanation as to why workmates can end up romantically involved. To concretize this notion, an untested saying casually reiterates that the more people meet daily and interact, the more they become closer, beautiful and handsome in each other’s eyes.

It is this interaction which gives employees the unsuspecting opportunity to get acquainted with another’s ideas, feelings, ambitions, interests, values, mannerisms and personal habits. These are the very things people examine at a more conscious level when seeking a partner.

The work place brings employees in close association with each other setting up an unconscious development of attraction. Business trips and team building exercises are examples of activities that bring commonality, familiarity, proximity and convenience amongst employees. Due to this, true love can be sort in the workplace regardless of gender.

Office romance for job security

Turning to job security issues, an argument often advanced is that women alone indulge in office romance to secure their jobs and advance. A blind eye is turned towards the fact that it is a man and woman who consummate a relationship and both should be equally judged, but alas on this aspect women bear the brunt far more. Why women?

This is a far broader issue to be addressed here but it all points to inequality in the workplace and the skewed ratios between men and women in leadership and influential positions. Basing on this it is arguably ‘subordinate’ women who seek favors from ‘superior’ men because of the tantalizing prospects of employment related advantages that are easily drawn when matters of the heart take precedence.

A lot of women out there will probably harangue me because of these sentiments, I don’t blame myself and I will accept the lashing because I have not yet heard of young men who have erotically approached their female superiors in search of lunch time goodies and favors. Honestly I need to be educated on this one. When it comes to egos, it is men with big egos who seek office romance for the sake of creating trophies in the cabinet.

A few years ago, I overheard a lunchtime conversation between bosses. There was a new female employee and she had all that describes a modern professional woman. In undertones I heard “whose woman is this, ndiani akamupinza pano? (Who got her the job?)”. The response was given and I heard some loud noises in celebration, “haaa akapenga, this is a woman and a half, ndakatangirwa mhani! (She is hot, I was a bit late)”.

Such behavior by men is a threat to all women, whether young, single or married and it’s a cancer to the workplace. They are men without shame with big egos who would do anything to win a woman’s heart just for the sake of it.

The downside of office romance

Young inexperienced professionals like students on attachment or interns, graduate trainees and upstarts should watch out for these peacocks, save for willing participants! For willing participants it’s rather a morally degrading and shallow unethical strategy to get favors. No matter how genuine or cozy office romance is, it has its downside and my gut feeling is that it outweighs the upside.

The widely reported Midlands State University case where a lecturer was fatally stabbed by her husband following reports of workplace romance spells out the deep consequences of workplace romance.

Do we really want it to end like this? No, not at all but office romance is a disease that may eat us to the core of our hearts and stretch us into hopeless thinking. My own untested hypothesis is that office romance is one of the causes of social ills like the so-called small houses (I don’t know how small they are but I suspect them to be big in a way), unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. This is social anathema which every sensible human being will try to fight in any way.

Office romance brings about gossiping which is never good for anyone since it’s the genesis of stress and bad work relations which negatively impact productivity. Due to gossiping a lot of hours are lost in the cocoon of stress and in generation of rumors.

Office romance carries about irresistible temptations that arise when we find ourselves in the vicinity of walls and we are bound to do things that we wouldn’t do without those walls.

Imagine when it is after work hours, everyone is gone, you are still in the office and she is alone in the next office. Then Cupid shoots his arrow, your heart starts beating faster and blood rushes to your head.

Office romance from an HR perspective

Logic will inform us that office romance negatively affects workmates directly and indirectly. A superior-subordinate relationship consciously and subconsciously influences some decisions in the workplace.

In the case of disciplinary issues, promotion or lucrative transfers and accusations of favoritism will always arise and this would be a genesis of protracted labour disputes. Loss of morale and rivalries are some of the effects on co-workers. To make matters worse, when the relationship ends badly, vicious dog fights emanate.

Accusations and counter accusations of unwanted advances, sexual harassment and rape are easily made. Absolving oneself from such is a Herculean task; usually this marks a downfall, an end of one’s career. So for those involved in office romance, common sense should apprise you to anticipate bloodshed before and after the tale end.

They are two sides to every story and office romance does have the other side. Office romance can make the workplace more fun and easier as it adds more excitement to work. Who doesn’t know that love makes the world go around? Even the workplace can roll up and down when office romance heats up the corridors. It can even increase punctuality as a love struck employee will be dying to get to work earlier to see his or her heartthrob.

In times of stress when an employee feels forsaken, everything going against him or her, when workmates are unapproachable and busy with their work, an office lover is always one person who will go an extra mile to be a shoulder to lean on and confide frustrations. Simply because of reciprocal affection, an office lover will spare time and carry a partner through the stress. Taking a leaf from this, office romance results in dynamism which enhances morale and communication.

Since office romance is inevitable and has dire consequences, there is a modern school of thought which suggests that there should be strict love contracts in the workplace which offer guidelines to a relationship, because policy or no policy people will always fall in love, secretly or openly.

This school of thought advances that a full disclosure to an employer and work mates about a relationship is way better than keeping it underground, above all nothing under the sun remains secret.

Dismissing lovers setting examples can never stop the power of love infiltrating into the workplace. So why not love contracts outlining the behavioral expectations of the employer on the lovers’ conduct during the relationship and when it breaks up?

Such a love contract will provide an additional notice of understanding the sexual harassment policy, spell out that the relationship is consensual, favoritism and disruption of work will be grounds for reprimand or dismissal and that the partners should notify the employer in the event of a break up.

Such a contract will reduce gossip and protect the employer and the employees from risks that arise from such relationships (accusations of unwanted advances, sexual harassment claims, and favoritism etc). For Zimbabwean organizations, this might be a good idea but I cannot imagine how many love contracts will be drawn. Maybe this is a far-fetched idea and rather an inapplicable Western construct.

With such eminence of office romance, the onus is upon Human Resources (HR) professionals to identify and distinguish various kinds of office romance in their organizations, be they flings, extramarital affairs and long term relationships. After this identification there is need to develop water tight policies built around common sense and enforceability that discourage and reprimand office romance or that inform how it should go.

In some instances, it will call upon HR to take an extra mile to counsel young professionals to understand the dire consequences of dating that ‘hot’ or ‘cool’ workmate. When the push comes to shove, HR should provide training for supervisors and managers about how to subtly address overt sexual behavior in the workplace.

In disciplinary cases involving such, it is advisable to maintain high levels of impartiality and make decisions on the basis of evidence at hand. Lastly HR might choose zero tolerance on office romance but as long they are offices, office romance is bound to blossom and inappropriate displays of affection will always flourish.