04:05
ISSUE 6
DIARY OF AN HR MANAGER
Friday 10.07 a.m. An impromptu meet with the Head of Accounts, Mike, brought a most unwelcome surprise: an office romance. I say unwelcome, but not in the sense that I am unromantic – I am on the mushy end of the spectrum – but more for the problems that such a situation can pose. The gist was that both were in their thirties, on the same level and one was married. Mike wanted my take on how to approach this. We actually had no formal policy, but it was on my to-do list to mesh with our workplace harassment piece, so it needed careful consideration. As an aside, I needed to roll out that addition to the harassment policy asap. Noted. Firstly, it wasn’t just gossip. They had both mentioned it to colleagues, so we needed to deal with it.
As they were equals in the department and the thing was consensual, the issue of coercion was negligible, which was a huge relief. Would this affect relations with co-workers in the department, and further, what would happen if they broke up, or if the partner of the married employee started causing trouble? I believe in treating everyone as adults. I told Mike to get them both in for a chat to clear the air about the risks and complications and give them the opportunity to clarify how things stood from their side. If this was going to be more than something casual, it was best if they were open about it, especially with immediate colleagues.
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