Are love contracts inevitable?

Before discussing the issue of love contract we should ask a question that ‘Are favouritism and sexual discrimination only limited to people who are involved in some kind of romantic relationship?’ If we look into the BPO-ITES sector, then you would find out many cases were sexual harassment was not because of romantic relationships but due to various other reasons. The rationale behind such a contract is to limit the liability of an organization in the event when the romantic relationship between the couple ends, but the question is whether this contract solves the ultimate purpose of the employer or not. Favouritism can happen even if there is a close friend or a relative working in the same project. It does not necessarily be someone with whom one is romantically associated. In that context you should also stop relatives and close friends to work in same projects as that might breed injustice. Similarly, if you consider sexual harassment, it is not necessary that only couples who broke up will file such charges aginst each other. There are umpteen number of cases were the person has alleged charges against people in workplace with whom they had no relationship. The point I want to make here is that break ups between a supervisor and a subordinate are not the only causes for sexual harassment in work place. A lot has to do with the intent of the person which is not necessarily based on prior commitments.

Moreover on imposing such a contract people might fear to be friendly with someone of the opposite sex, which is not in accordance to the interests of an organization. Also rightly pointed out by Priyanka Panda, friendship between two people might be misconstrued as something else. It is extremely difficult to speculate that two people are into some kind of a relationship. Employees can also complain if they are forced to sign at a very sensitive point in time.

There are several companies which ask their managers to attend sexual harassment training. Some companies clearly state that the relationship between co-workers are not their business unless fallout affects the workplace. If the manager chooses to date a subordinate in that case, he/she should notify the HR (As pointed out by Sumit Ghosh). I would also like to draw attention to the practices followed by some of the Indian MNC’s like Wipro where I worked for 3 years. They have a policy wherein they sponsor trips for employees who married co-workers working in Wipro. These examples further substantiate the fact that a love contract is not the right way to reduce liability. I personally feel that strong sexual harassment policies combined with an effective reporting and investigation policy can protect workplace from litigation. Companies should not go for ‘love contracts’ which restricts freedom and imposes unwanted binding and pressure on the employees.