Romance at Work

I no sooner hung up from one call and the phone rang once again. Now what? Busy days are the norm in Human Resources, but this one was turning out to be impossible.  

"Maryanne, this is Pete from the Detroit office. I've got Mark, our division president, here with me. We've got a sticky situation we want to talk to you about before we take any action. It seems that two of our senior leaders were spotted Saturday night having what appeared to be a romantic dinner together. An employee from another department saw them across the restaurant, though they didn't appear to see her. She observed them holding hands during dinner and they kissed at the door."

“Let me get some information before we go any further,” I said. “Is there a reporting relationship between them?”

“She reports to him,” said Mark. “He heads up a significant line of business, and she's responsible for a key project within that business line.”

I sighed to myself. Of course, they are both valued contributors.

“We’ve got to look at the business issue here. We certainly can’t move her to another project. It might have a negative impact on the current one. And it could look like we’re discriminating against her if we took her off an important assignment or put her into a lesser role.”

“Can’t they be disciplined for violating company policy?”  Mark asked. 

 “Which policy?  We don’t prohibit dating. We only prohibit family members being in reporting relationships.” 

We’d given this a great deal of thought when creating our policies.  We had no time nor desire to monitor personal relationships. Our employees are adults and we trusted they would act accordingly.

Pete exclaimed, “But what about our ethics policy?  They’re both married!”

 “Pete, we’re not in the business of regulating personal morality.  We’ve had one observation outside the workplace. Until then, there was no indication of a relationship—and it surprised you both. The relationship hasn’t been an issue, nor interfered with work until now, correct?  What’s different is now a perception of a problem—that she may be receiving preferential treatment from him because of their personal friendship.”

“That’s true, Maryanne,” said Mark.  “I was blindsided by the news and may have jumped to conclusions.  

“Have you considered making them part of the solution?” I asked.  “They must have given this some thought and are aware that their personal relationship will have a business impact.”

“Now that I think about it, we may be able to move her project to another line of business.” 

“Well, why don’t you both meet with them and let them know they'd been seen out together. Talk about the perception this creates and the problems from that perception. But stress they are both valued members of the team. Ask for their thoughts and brainstorm potential solutions. Don’t take any immediate action until all of the options are thoroughly explored, and you follow up with me.”

As I took off my headset and took a deep breath to clear my head, I thought: It's never black and white when you're dealing with people. There are always at least fifty shades of grey especially with office romances.

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