Office romance, even when consensual, can ignite workplace disputes and sexual-harassment complaints. This is especially problematic when one party to the relationship is the other’s manager. For these reasons, many companies are making workplace romance their business by establishing policies prohibiting intimate relationships among co-workers. Employees who cross or blur those lines may put their jobs at risk.
A manager at a manufacturing company in Guelph, Ont., was fired in 2006 for engaging in sexual relationships with two female subordinates for more than a decade. Early on in his tenure, the manager had dated a married colleague whose husband also worked for the company. When the husband learned of her affair, he complained to the owner. The manager was moved to another plant and warned that if he engaged in similar conduct with female employees again he would be dismissed.
I am often consulted by executives and other employees who want to understand their obligations to their employers when they start dating subordinates at work. The majority of these cases are men who choose to date their assistants or other, more junior employees. They all worry that it may end badly, which is precisely what brings them to consult with me in the first place.
An employer has the right to disseminate any rule that it chooses. Therefore, even a consensual relationship could amount to cause for dismissal without any severance if it is in violation of a decree. This will depend on how clear the rule is and whether it is consistently enforced. As well, courts will consider the seniority of the employee in question, whether other employees in the workplace became aware of the transgression and the nature of the company’s business, among other factors.
globebusiness When it interferes with the functioning of the workplace.
globebusiness Awesome choice of stock photo for 'consensual workplace relationship.' That is totally the image this picture conveys. 😆