How companies should handle office romance

Companies generally know how to deal with sexual harassment. But what to do when office romances spur "hostile work environment" claims?

Office romance is inevitable. What's changing, however, is the legal climate in which these relationships take place.

Managers should be particularly concerned when a romance between a supervisor and subordinate causes other subordinates to feel resentful about the fairness of evaluations and rewards.

If people detect, or even suspect, favouritism, they're less likely to work as hard as they can. Productivity, therefore, suffers. Also hugely problematic: someone who feels disgruntled files a hostile work environment lawsuit.

According to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations, an employer may be liable for a hostile work environment claim when unlawful discrimination takes place: for instance, when a third-party employee was qualified for, but denied, an employee opportunity or benefit because someone in a romantic relationship with a supervisor received it instead.

While sexual harassment complaints generally involve two people, hostile work environment claims involve many more 486 employees in the case of Mitsubishi Corporation for example, which agreed to pay $34 million to settle an EEOC suit on behalf of employees who were groped and subjected to lewd jokes while on the job.

In fact, this problem is growing. The most recent available statistics show that in 2008 the EEOC received 13,867 claims alleging sexual harassment and a hostile work environment-the highest level in six years.

David Letterman's recent revelations about his office romances with subordinates in his production company highlight some of the dangers involved in being in an office romance.

On October 1, 2009, Letterman revealed on his TV program that he'd had sexual relationships with several women on his 70-person staff.

Letterman made his public declaration after receiving a package of materials about the affairs which "contained clear, explicit and actual threats that [were designed to] ... destroy the reputation of Letterman and to submit him and his family to humiliation and ridicule."

Rather than pay the $2 million demanded by the extortionist for his silence, Letterman informed the authorities (who arrested the suspect) and made his own public revelation of the whole business.

Questions immediately surfaced: Was Letterman guilty of sexual harassment? Would anyone pursue legal action, charging that they felt coerced into affairs with Letterman, even if the liaisons appeared at the time consensual?

And there were questions concerning the impact Letterman's behaviour had on the entire workplace: Would other employees file formal charges that their knowledge of Letterman's sexual relationships created a hostile work environment biased against them? Did he display favouritism toward his romantic partners that he denied non-romantically involved co-workers?

Managers can take steps to protect their businesses from hostile environment claims and the associated consequences of lawsuits, large monetary jury awards, public embarrassment and damage to employee moral and productivity.

Employers need to develop a policy that declares management's expectations, which could help shield companies from legal liability either by preventing unacceptable incidents or at least reducing them.

The elements of the policy are similar to those needed to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Companies need to prove that they took two steps.

The first is that they took strong action to prevent office romances from engendering favouritism, sexual harassment or a hostile work environment.

The second is that if these problems arose, the companies activated a response plan to halt the suspected violation immediately, to investigate the circumstances thoroughly and in an unbiased manner and to penalize guilty perpetrators according to preestablished guidelines.

But to help prevent problems from occurring in the first place, employers should educate employees regarding the companies' policies concerning office romance.

The cornerstone of an employer's efforts to prevent favouritism, sexual harassment and hostile work environments is a policy statement-in writing and widely circulated-informing all employees that the employer actively seeks to identify and eliminate all problems stemming from sexual dynamics.

The policy should include a complaint procedure, a distribution plan and a system for timely investigations and corrective action.

The policy statement should be clear, emphatic, easily understood, free of confusing legal terms and provide examples of conduct targeted for immediate dismissal.

The Forbes