OFFICE ROMANCES
17%
Of office romances
have resulted
in marriages
45%
Of bosses think
employees should keep
personal problems
to themselves
1 in 7
Workers leave their
jobs because of failed
office romances
than half have proven to be
unsupportive of their employees during
times of emotional strife.”
But how do bosses feel about this? A
third of UK bosses believed it was
important for employees to inform them
if they are going through emotional
trouble, such as the breakdown of a
relationship. However, many managers
(46%) preferred that employees keep
such things to themselves – both male
bosses (48%) and older bosses aged
55-64 (54%) felt this especially, versus
43% of female bosses and bosses aged
34 and under.
OUT OF WORK ROMANCES
In addition to relationships in the
workplace, Perkbox’s research also
looked at how employees deal with
personal relationships overall. It showed
that 60% of men would feel
comfortable confiding in their bosses on
personal issues such as the break-up of
a relationship with a partner or spouse,
if they felt that it would interfere with
them doing their job properly. Only half
of women said the same.
Age plays a role on an employee’s ability
to confide in their boss: nearly 50% of
those who admitted it would be difficult
were aged between 35 and 54. Only
22% of 55-64 year olds and a quarter of
18-34 year olds felt the same –
indicating that both millennials and baby
boomers are more amenable to opening
up emotionally to their managers
if needed.
Discussing the results, Cao added: “It’s
encouraging to see that men are
becoming more open with their
emotions and are confiding more in their
bosses when it comes to affairs of the
heart, as it goes against the very
stereotypical codes of behaviour
dictating how a man should emotionally
conduct themselves professionally.
“By contrast, women’s reluctance to
open up emotionally at work serves to
highlight the continuing challenges they
face in business – to rebuke the
gender-based conventional codes that
posit them ‘too emotional’ and instead
to be more poker faced and composed
in the face of difficulty, lest the act of
displaying emotions or confiding in
peers harms their career prospects. It’s
also quite concerning how half of UK
bosses in our research see emotional
intelligence as unimportant and less
Overall, only 45% of employees stated
that their employer had been supportive
when they confided in them about
emotional difficulties. The North East
(31%) and Scotland (36%) had the most
supportive bosses while bosses in
London (21%) and the South West
(16%) were the least supportive of
their employees.
Explaining the impact of an insensitive
organisation, Cao concluded: “Effective
employee engagement must absolutely
include processes for managing
emotional wellness. Neglecting to do so
can have numerous implications on the
physical wellbeing of the employee and
therefore the ability to do the job at
hand, to the personal resentment
harboured at management for lack of
support and imparting good old-
fashioned human empathy.
“The sooner bosses are able to get to
grips with this – the most critical of all
so-called ‘soft skills’ – using engagement
tools and through training, the more
adept they will be at creating the kind of
inspirational work environment that
employs the most successful and
productive of teams.”
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