OFFICE ROMANCES
E
very business owner and employer wants an
organisation that works well as a team; one
that has a family culture where colleagues
build great relationships. However, what happens
when a professional relationship turns into a
personal one?
Perkbox recently investigated the impact of office
relationships on emotional intelligence, with 1,050
UK managers and employees conducted in January
2017. With UK employees clocking in more hours
at the office than ever before, the workplace has
become a common environment for love to
blossom. Overall, a third of employees have had a
relationship with a colleague at some point in their
career – equating to some 8.85 million of the 26.8
million employees in the UK**–17% of these
workplace couplings have resulted in marriages or
civil partnerships.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
OFFICE ROMANCES
Although romances between colleagues do occur,
cubicle courtships ended in tears for one in seven
workers who have had to leave their jobs largely
because of a failed romance with a colleague. More
men (20%) than women (12%) resigned because of
this, while the vast majority of workers aged
between 35-54 stuck it out.
The research revealed that men appear to be more
accepting of workplace relationships than women
with 67% believing that they are not a problem as
long as they do not interfere with work compared
to just 8% of women. Additionally, 27% of men
believe that love affairs between colleagues are no
one’s business other than the two people involved.
Katherine Dyson from Barnsley in Leeds spoke of
her office romance with her now husband and the
impact it had on her working life. “The biggest issue
I had was that it changed the way my line manager
treated me – she was close to my husband before
we were together and I think she felt a bit pushed
out, so she would sometimes make sarcastic
comments to me and comment negatively on
my work.
“I was in an entry-level role, so had been thinking of
moving on anyway, but when I started having the
problems with my manager I decided that it would
probably be a lot easier if I just looked for a
different job.”
Overall, managers appear to be quite accepting of
office romances with 62% having no problems with
such unions provided that this did not impact on an
employee’s job. In fact, older bosses aged 45 and
above were noticeably more accepting of this (51%)
than bosses aged 35 and under (45%). That said, a
quarter of workplaces confirmed that they had
policies in place which discourage romantic
relationships at work; 7% of which are reflected in
employment contracts, while 18% have an
unspoken rule against workplace romances.
**UK employment figures taken from latest ONS’s UK labour
market report
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