"Workplace”, where an employee spends maximum amount of his/her waking time, can be considered as a natural arena for relationships to develop. The same has also been pointed out by my friends in previous posts that romantic relationships between employees are quite common at workplace due to diverse reasons.
Similar has been the case with Pritam and Jagruti. From one stand point, it can be said that it was a personnel matter of Pritam and Jagruti and thus, the employer should not have interfered and should not have forced them to sign the “Dating and Relationship Agreement”. What must matter to an employer is his employees’ performance at workplace which he can always keep a check on through various performance measurement techniques. And if he feels that they are not performing up to the mark he can always give them a warning or terminate their services. But, forcing them to enter into a contract which can affect their personnel relationship is wrong on his part.
But then, this issue also has another side to it, which apparently can affect the reputation and culture of the organization. Romantic relationships at workplace can lead to favoritism, poor productivity, sexual harassment claims and sometimes even workplace violence.
Workplace romances can bring poor publicity to the organization, if it goes sour. An employee can take the breakup on his/her ego and can file the charges of “Sexual Harassment” against his/her ex-partner. This can adversely affect the reputation of the organization. Moreover, it can also affect the working culture of the organization when the employees who have parted don’t remain professional about it at work and other employees start taking sides according to their preferences. Also, the “Public Display of Affection” in such relationships (as even done by Pritam and Jagruti) can create an atmosphere that encourages other employees to engage in conduct that can further aggravate the chances of sexual harassment charges.
Amongst all the relationships at workplace, Supervisor-Subordinate romances are the ones that can cause the most problems. Such relationships can complicate things not just for the two people involved but also for the other employees who may feel that the supervisor is favoring the person over others just because they are dating. This can bring a feeling of discontent amongst other subordinates of the supervisor.
To countercheck such incidents HR department of the organization is expected to draft out policies in such a manner that the affect of “Workplace Romances” is minimal. Thus, the organizations are forced to institute something like “Consensual Relationship Agreements” (similar to the “Dating and Relationship Agreement” in the given story). Such agreements stipulate that the relationship will not affect and interfere with the work of those involved.
But in many cases, participants involved will be least likely to sign the love contracts, especially when they are involved in an extramarital affair. Such relationships are most likely to cause problems for the organizations and thus, Love contracts don’t always protect the companies from workplace romances and their aftereffects. These contracts can also be regarded by employees as invasion of their privacy and may put HR in an awkward position of keeping track of who dates whom. It also brings in a lot of subjectivity on the part of HR. And thus, companies should look for some alternatives to these “Love Contracts”.
In spite of such issues many organizations these days are in the favor of recruiting the spouse of the person already working with them. Employees prefer such employers and constrain themselves from switching organizations, as through this they get an opportunity to spend some time with their spouse even during work hours by taking lunch breaks together and by travelling together. This also lessens the chances of extramarital affairs and thus, even organizations are benefitted from these kinships.
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