Business Ethic

Part I. Case Development

Working in Human resources can make it very difficult to meet friends at work. Many Human resources professionals avoid being too friendly with employees outside of the department and there are employees who keep their distance from being too friendly with Human resources personnel.

I did break this rule several years ago when we hired a new employee. This employee and I hit it off immediately and we became very good friends and remain this way today. This friend was an excellent employee. Everyone loved working with her and her assistance was in great demand.

Several years after meeting this new employee the two of us decided to become roommates. We were both in the market to move and both of us were students working full-time, so we rented an apartment together. Soon after becoming roommates my friend broke-up with her boyfriend of several years and it wasn't long before that I noticed frequent phone calls to the apartment from a partner at our firm. The partner was her direct supervisor so I found it somewhat strange that he would call her at home so often and at such hours. At the time I chose not to say anything as I did not think it was any of my business.

As time went on the calls started to get more frequent and on several occasions my friend called the partner, in my presence, very late at night and left him what I believed to be a very personal message and not work-related. Even more interesting was the fact that the partner was married.

After some consideration I decided to bring up the subject of the calls with my friend. I was merely inquiring as to what was going on between her and this partner. My friend brushed it off and implied that nothing was going on between them. I accepted this at the time and decided to drop the subject for the moment.

Sometime later I learned that my friend was traveling to London on business with this partner. My suspicions were raised at this point since I knew that employees in my friend's position did not typically travel on business. I started to get a little concerned at this point. I knew the potential risks involved when a manager is intimately involved with a subordinate. In addition, I knew that the firm had a very strict code of conduct for partners given the fact that the firm had lost a very public sexual harassment lawsuit several years ago. The lawsuit came from a former secretary who was harassed by her immediate supervisor, a partner.

I started to go over all the facts in my head and asked myself if I had some sort of obligation as the human resources manager to address my concerns with the employee.

Part II. Alternative Courses of Action

1. The human resources manager could report the alleged relationship to the general counsel or another member of top management. Management would decide the course of action to take with the partner.

2. The human resources manager could keep knowledge of the relationship confidential. The relationship was personal and not necessarily work-related. If a serious claim was filed, the human resources manager could deny she knew the employee and partner were involved romantically.

Part III. Case Research

Office romance is inevitable. It is a fact of life. In the last year alone workplace relationships increased to nearly ten million compared to eight million in 1998 (Spragins, 2004, p62). We work long hours and spend most of our time at the office or conducting business outside of the office with our colleagues. With this much time being spent with co-workers, there is hardly time to meet a companion or develop relationships outside of the workplace. Nowadays, most people look to the workplace as another alternative to meet a partner.

As a manager or human resource professional, office romances can be a very complicated personnel issue to deal with and a subject most would rather not touch. One might argue that personal affairs are not the business of the employer and doing so is invading an employee's privacy. The subject itself can be difficult to bring up or speak about so it is awkward for managers to raise the subject with employees. Others might think differently, especially if the relationship is between a manager and a subordinate. The impact these relationships have had on the workplace has forced this issue.

Office romances can create a wide variety of problems and personnel issues within an office. People are not typically use to seeing personal displays of affection between co-workers at the office. Office romances distract employees, negatively impact morale, reduce productivity and in some more serious cases lead to violence (Greenwald, 2000). Although, the number of serious claims that develop after failed love affairs at work is relatively small. "Over a five-year period, only 4% of the people who had an office romance in 617 companies surveyed by the Society for Human resource Management saw it result in a formal complaint." (Spragins, 2004, p62). Even with the relatively small number of potential serious claims, organizations need to address this in an effort to be prepared for the small amount of workplace romances that do not end on a good terms.

The type of romance that can be most damaging to an organization is the manager/subordinate relationship. Even though many organizations discourage this type of relationship between a manager and a subordinate, the trend continues to grow (Quinn, 1984). When the relationship involves a male supervisor and a female subordinate it can lead to not so positive office morale. Office romance is not easy to hide and people thrive on gossip, especially gossip involving romantic relationships between a manager and a subordinate. Many perceive manager/subordinate relationships as either a women taking the opportunity to advance her career or win over the boss for other reasons. These relationships also have the biggest impact on the workplace because they can lead to resentment among co-workers and employees may believe there is favoritism. In addition, employees generally no longer trust management (Poe, 2000). This can lead to serious conflicts within a work group including claims of hostile work environment (Quinn, 1984). When relationships of this nature end badly legal issues can arise if the subordinate employee claims he or she was pressured into the relationship by the manager (Poe, 2000).

Organizations need to face the fact that workplace romances are a fact of life and regardless of the rules or policies