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Oct 6, 2009 11:17 pm US/Central
Good Question: When Is Workplace Romance Trouble?
(WCCO)
We spend more time at work than almost anywhere else. It's no surprise that people find love in the cubicle. But one lesson of the David Letterman scandal is that workplace romance does not always end well. So when does dating a coworker become trouble?
"There is nothing against the law in having a relationship at work," said George Wood, an employment attorney at Littler Mendelson in Minneapolis.
"You're never going to be able to stop two people from falling in love at work," he added. "It can happen, it can work, but a lot of times it doesn't because people don't act mature."
According to Wood, people need to consider carefully the ramifications of getting involved with a coworker, especially if it's a supervisor and a subordinate.
"The company needs to know about the issue, need to know relationship exists, they need to talk to people in the relationship or maybe outside of the relationship if they have concerns," Wood said.
Many companies have policies that require supervisors to disclose relationships with subordinates to Human Resources. Letterman's company, Worldwide Pants, has maintained it has no such policy.
Often after the disclosure, the company will take action to make it more unlikely that the subordinate involved with a supervisor doesn't get any preferential treatment.
"That's why most good employers will break up the reporting relationship and put the girlfriend (or boyfriend) under another supervisor," Wood said.
In his experience, he said, things don't typically turn ugly, until the relationship breaks up. Sometimes one of the parties will claim they were forced into the relationship because of a quid pro quo, he or she felt she had to have sex with the boss in order to stay employed or get promoted.
"Or after the relationship breaks up, the person's being treated differently than they were before," Wood said.
Sexual harassment law dates to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the case law didn't really establish the rules for workplace sexual harassment until 1986. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson set standards for quid pro quo harassment and for a hostile work environment situation.
At Wood's law firm, they try to encourage communication up front to prevent problems at the end.
"In certain cases, we will have the two people enter into what we euphemistically call a love contract, which defines the relationship, defines what will happen in the workplace, defines what happens after the relationship, so that everybody's on the same page," Wood said.
It's not all bad, of course. According to a 2003 survey by the American Management Association, 44 percent of boss-subordinate relationships end in marriage.
Bill Gates married his Microsoft employee, Melinda. Barack Obama was an intern at Michelle's law firm. And CBS CEO Les Moonves is married to Early Show anchor Julie Chen.
"There's only one CEO, but a whole lot of middle managers," said Wood, adding that's typically where these problems come from.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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