There is another angle to this case. Suppose Shahrukh is the supervisor and Kajol reports to him and they are in deep love. This goes on as long as things are fine. One fine day, they break up. Now there are two possibilities - Shahrukh tries cajoling Kajol who in return may file sexual harassment case against him, on the other hand Shahrukh may fire her without cause. In both the cases, who is the victim ? Yes, its the employer who will be held liable by the courts.
In order to prevent such unfortunate outcomes, companies are coming up with Dating and Relationship Agreements. This is to ensure that the employees are in relationship with mutual consent. Generally in most of the cases, it was found that the culprits held a "supervisor-subordinate" relation officially. This relationship may also lead to discontentment among the employees because they may feel that the supervisor is favouring his subordinate just because they are dating.
There is also the issue of PDA(Public Displays of Affection). For instance, in companies like Infosys, its explicitly mentioned in the employee handbook that an employee can file complaint against any incidents of PDA if he/she is not comfortable with it.
What's more important in such cases is the way the management handles such issues. First and foremost, it should document the Dating and Relationship Policy and more importantly, communicate the same when an employee joins the organization. It should clearly state the consequences in case of any violations. I think this is the point where the firm in the given case has gone wrong. Instead of communicating and enforcing the agreement right from day one, it seems there was a "Big Brother" watching over the employees looking for signs of romance and then forcing them to adhere to such agreements which obviously would embarrass them.
1 comment:
A very important point has been raised here by Rakesh. If the employees in a relationship break up, then the company is to suffer. But can’t the company avoid this by simply making sure that the two are not working in the same team, and that they have no reporting relation between them??
We need to understand here that the company is not making a generic contract and making everybody sign it. It is specifically done for a couple. Is it ensured that because of the contract, they will not do anything after they break up? Shahrukh can still blame Kajol of not working properly and fire her. Alternately, Kajol can refuse to work after they have broken up, and say that he cannot fire her otherwise she will claim that it was because they broke up. She can allege that he actually breached the love contract!!
The company simply needs to talk to these couples and make sure that they are working in different teams. “20% of the employees find their life partners in the same office” – we would not want Pritam and Jagruti to split up because they did not want to sign the contract. They could have very well been in that 20%.
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