Yes, virginia, there are romantic relationships in the workplace. The Harry Stonecipher affair — in which the Boeing Co.
CEO was forced out after the board discovered he was having an affair with a company executive — is a dramatic example of the ethical quagmire involved, but it’s not exactly a freak occurrence.

“We know that couples meet in the workplace,” says Gerry Smith, vice president of organizational health at human resources consulting firm WarrenShepell in Toronto.
With a culture that places such a high premium on spending as much time in the office as possible, it’s unavoidable.

Who doesn’t know someone who married someone he or she met at work? There are positive stories of long and happy relationships. “But for every one that goes well, there are probably many more that go badly,” says Smith.

Companies should be aware that these things happen, not only because of the legal ramifications should relationships sour but also because the romance can negatively shift the office dynamic.

One poisonous side effect is favouritism.
Real or perceived, the belief that someone has a professional edge over others simply because he or she enjoys an intimate relationship with someone in the same office, particularly a superior, can be very destructive. Co-workers can feel bitter and resentful, productivity can decline and service to clients or customers can suffer.

Despite this danger, most companies avoid dealing with the issue head-on, says Howard Levitt, employment lawyer and counsel at national law firm Lang Michener LLP in Toronto. At best, companies rely on generic conflict-of-interest policies to address situations in which there’s a reporting relationship, for example. The more reasonable and detailed a policy, the better protected a company is if a situation ever goes before the courts, he says.

While a well-considered policy is essential to protect a firm’s good name, says Levitt, some companies don’t put the time and effort into designing a comprehensive code of conduct. “[Executives] come up with some quick policy that doesn’t really work because they haven’t thought through all the issues properly,” he says. Or, worse, they create a policy without any clear-cut solutions or with ill-conceived solutions.

Take the zero-tolerance stance of Boeing.
Despite the fact that Stonecipher was regarded as an asset to the company, its policy gave the board little choice but to show him the door.

Zero tolerance, while a suitable stance for issues such as sexual harassment, won’t necessarily address all the possible nuances of romantic work relationships, says Alan Levy, who teaches alternative dispute resolution at the University of Toronto and practises as a mediator. “One must be very careful with zero-tolerance workplace policies because they don’t allow any judiciousness in the decision-making,” he says. In other words, the degree of the problem is not taken into consideration. If there’s any relationship at all, someone gets the axe — “And that’s a rather simplistic way of looking at any workplace problem,” he says.

Levy recommends managers make room for reasonable judgment on a case-by-case basis within their code of conduct. Detailing very specific criteria of what makes behaviour unacceptable — and what action will be taken should such behaviour occur — is the only sensible way to avoid office romance fallout, says Levy.

While there is no “one size fits all” policy guide — because a company’s size, culture and the industry in which it operates all play a role in how romantic relationships are regarded, says Levitt — companies need to break the issues into bite-sized pieces before signing off on their policies.

Here are some questions to ask:

> Do you prohibit inter-office relationships?
Should relationships between superiors and subordinates be tolerated? Most would agree that such “reporting relationships” are a direct conflict of interest and pose far too much risk to a company.

> Do you require disclosure? Some organizations that don’t specifically prohibit relationships do require that employees tell someone in management that something is going on. Of course, that brings up intriguing concerns as to the definition of a relationship. “What do you disclose? A relationship? An affair?” asks Levitt. “I won’t tell my wife but I’ll tell the board?”
Companies can avoid confusion by setting a time construct on a relationship of, say, two or three months.

> What are the actions a company will take?
If someone has to leave the company, who will it be? Will it be according to rank? The company may consider other options, as well, such as requiring someone to switch departments or even, depending on it size, transfer to another branch/office. IE