Sex or romance at work between consenting adults is not necessarily sexual harassment. Welcome or invited actions or words may not be unlawful.
When one person in the relationship has authority over the other, there is a risk that the relationship will result in favoritism, or that the person not in authority feels they must go along with the relationship in order to avoid negative consequences.
And when one person wants to end a relationship and the other person doesn’t, unwelcome or uninvited conduct or communication of a sexual nature can become a harassment issue for the employer. This is why sexual harassment training is so important.
Consider this real life situation. There was a couple who had a romance in the office and it was very quiet for a very long time. They were both married, they both left their respective spouses. She was working for him and they eventually got married, and they still were with the same company. But when their marriage went south, it destroyed the relationships with the people they worked for, because they didn’t know whose lead to follow as a result. So it became a very disruptive environment.
And as a result, HR had a conversation with both of them – one of them had to leave because it was so damaging for the business. And neither one would go, neither one would cooperate. Both in senior management positions, so we ultimately had to ask them both to leave. We ended their relationships with the company.
That one was cheap, about half a million dollars in terms of severance, wrongful termination and such. And as result of it being a public company it had to go to the board. That was part of the disclosure in all of our public documents.
The problem is, if you have two consenting adults in a relationship, from the employer’s perspective that’s just fine.
Even if both participants are single, few workplace romances last forever and seldom end well.
This is a crucial point. It would be the rare relationship when both people agreed at the same exact moment that the relationship would end and that it would end in a friendly fashion.
Relationships just don’t work that way. Many sexual harassment complaints arise out of situations when one person still thinks it’s great and the other person thinks it’s over. And inevitably, when it happens in the workplace it becomes the problem for both participants and the employer.
For who have tried romance at work, it taints how they are viewed by their peers and superiors … especially anyone that might write a letter of recommendation for them in the future.
Consider Accelerate’s online HFC (Harassment Free Culture) training for your organization.
HFC is the Best Harassment Training available because it:
- Has engaging and relatable videos viewable anytime, anywhere; do some in the office, airport or a plane (LMS permitting);
- Exceeds legal requirements of all fifty US states; and,
- Is provided at a great price
For more information, email Mike@Accelerate-LD.com.
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