Dating In The Workplace - Risky Business?

Risky Business? 

Romancing A Direct Report!

Dating in the Workplace

Keep Off the Grass

Those of us of an indeterminable age used to say, “don’t dip your pen in the company ink!” The Millennial version of which is something like “don’t pop your USB into your co-workers port!” Sound advice, particularly in a pluralistic society where regulations, principles, norms, and relationships between the sexes are constantly being redefined.

 Today, the ethical standards surrounding dating in the workplace are at best precarious and at worst ruinous. Surprising to note then that more than 80% of millennials give barely a second thought to romancing a co-worker. Inconceivably 40% of Millennials don’t see an issue with dating their superior! Is it possible the Steve Easterbrook debacle passed them by? Maybe they’d logged out when the reverberations of the #MeToo movement deafened everything with a Y chromosome from sea to shining sea.

 It’s not just the youngsters making eyes at each other in the boardroom. 34% of those aged 30 to 45 are open to a workplace dalliance. While only 28% of Baby Boomers would consider it. Most Boomers very sensibly are not having for want of a better phrase ‘a bit of it’. The question for those in a position of authority is. If you take the risk are you the last of the great romantics or foolhardy and ill-informed?

Crossing Boundaries 

For anyone who holds a position made up of capitals COO, CEO, VP. Dating a subordinate is the most pernicious workplace pursuit you could engage in. As consensual as a relationship may be, any sexual encounter between superior and junior is more likely to end with a career and reputation in tatters than a sun-dappled picnic in the park. Bottom line, the issue here is not one of consent the issue is the imbalance of power!

The line between a consensual relationship and sexual harassment in the workplace is paper thin. Never more so than when you choose to date a direct report. “It’s a private matter!” No, I’m afraid it is not. Interoffice romances, especially with a subordinate, are never a private matter for long. When the gossip starts which it will, the balloon well and truly goes up. With immediate effect, you are seen differently and so is the direct report. Assumptions of favouritism and cronyism will be made. Questions concerning accountability, credibility, respectability, and transparency will be asked. All things apt to tear even the most cohesive group of co-workers apart. Great if a negative effect on productivity is what you were hoping for.

Did you check with your lower-level paramour they'd entered the relationship feeling they had a choice? Without fear of reprisal, without fear of their future employment opportunities in the company or elsewhere? Did you give a thought to the total control and authority you hold over your underling before locking lips? Let’s change tack, what happens after your first lovers tiff? What happens if you want to end things? What happens when your workplace lover becomes vengeful? That is when your motives may be misrepresented, that is when charges of coercion may be made, that is when claims of sexual harassment can be laid at your door. 

But It’s Not True

Mindful of the absolute dominance in the workplace hierarchy superior holds over subordinate. Not to mention, the emotive and personal narratives born of the #MeToo movement. A movement that seems to suggest 'all those that say they are victims must be believed'. A movement that is the cornerstone of a shiny new, and progressive orthodoxy few dare to challenge, proving one’s innocence may be difficult

Ethics & Morality

People regularly conflate ethics and morality, and though the two are often reciprocal, they are not the same. You see ethics are a set of rules suggested, presented and conformed to by society, cultural and community groups. In the workplace community, those rules are as much unwritten as they are written. Morals are the inner convictions of a person, an intimate and individual thing. What may seem right and reasonable to one is an affront to another. There are many things in life which are both ethical and legal but are seen by many as immoral. For example, Apple, Amazon, Randgold Resources, and most other large corporations all avoid paying any or their fair share of tax in the UK by moving their profits around the world. They do this legally and as such break no ethical code, but is it moral?

Consider Yourself Told

While most companies in the UK do not have a direct policy in place preventing workplace fraternisation. Workplace Romeos would do well to wrap their heads around the fundamentals. That ethics and legality always take precedence over feelings and beliefs. With most of us spending more time in the office than at home some stationery cupboard tonsil hockey is unavoidable. Nevertheless, before you cosy up to a junior, save yourself some cold sweats and remember. So bright is the Cosby, Epstein, Weinstein spotlight. So merciless is our gender charged climate there’s no room for error, and there’s nowhere left to hide.

Written by George~Carter Cunningham