Better Managing Tips

Posts Tagged ‘harrassment’

In my opinion, it’s a very very bad idea. Weather it’s just a quick one nighter or a long term love affair, someone will walk away the loser when it’s over. What’s worse is that when a person in a management role has an affair with someone who’s a subordinate, that’s when it gets really messy. I have seen it time and time again.

This is one reason why I hate office Christmas parties because this stuff happens all the time. I remember one Christmas party about 10 years ago, the stories that circulated for months after about who hooked up with whom and what they did and where they did it drove me crazy. It was always destructive. It was usually the guys bragging about where they did it and disclosed person information about what the woman looked like etc. One got so bad that I had to take disciplinary action against the people circulating the stories.

Most companies have policies against inter office romances. While I generally don’t agree with these as I think it infringes on a persons freedom to a degree, I can certainly understand it. So much time and productivity is wasted when these goes bad (it’s usually only a matter of time), that companies make up these policies. It’s their time and money that is wasted when it’s time to clean up the mess. One or both of you can lose your jobs if it goes bad. This means for the company money and time spent on the recruitment and training process.

This one to me is a no brainer. Don’t do it. If you do, be prepared for it to get out of control. It leaves you wide open for harassment suits. Unfortunately today, even if you look at someone in the wrong way its considered harassment! Most of the time they end badly for one if not both the parties involved. I have yet to hear about one romance that started at work and has ended well for both parties. If you know of someone, let me know as I would love to hear about it and maybe knock some of the cynicism about this topic out of me.

Cheers

Andrew Bailey

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