Up and down the country, thousands of singletons are meeting their future partners in the office. But according to a recent study, one-third of employers have prohibited relationships between “managers and subordinates”.
Findings from the 2012 XpertHR survey of workplace relationships found that some employers have banned relationships between bosses and staff, while one employer in six has prohibited relationships between employees and customers, and one in seven banned relationships between employees who are on the same team.
However, despite the obvious distain for office romance, the survey also found that more than two-thirds of employers do not have a policy in place to deal with workplace relationships, and just 10% have such a standalone policy.
Among those who have cracked down on office romances, respondents to the survey revealed that the most common type of action taken was asking employees to inform line managers or HR departments when a workplace relationship began. However, on a “more negative note”, some said that they monitor colleagues in relationships "for problematic behaviour".
Some managers surveyed said they did, in fact, support workplace relationships, while the most common response among employers learning of relationships between colleagues was to take no action at all.