What should you do if your employees fall in love with one another?
Most people have very strong views on this subject. Those who are opposed argue that romantic attachments disturb the equilibrium of the workplace, interfere with professionalism, and unnecessarily confuse work and pleasure. They are right about all of this, of course. Work-based romances do get complicated. But is work so important that you can expect those working for you to sacrifice their emotional well-being for it? If your vice president of sales fell in love with a cubicle neighbor, could you seriously contend that work must come first?
According to CareerBuilder.com’s annual romance-in-the-office survey, 39 percent of workers have dated a colleague and 30 percent of those got married. I’m just surprised the number is so low. We know that similar people (not opposites) attract. Statistically, you are highly likely to marry someone whose eyes, hair, height, body shape, and life experiences closely mirror your own. It’s what psychologists call positive assortative mating, and all it means is that humans are drawn to people who are similar to themselves–those who make them feel comfortable and safe. Though straying out of that comfort zone may happen occasionally, such forays rarely end in matrimony.
Add to all that the fact that occupation choice says a huge amount about people: what they enjoy and value. As such, your employees are all highly likely to find they work alongside people who share their tastes and preferences. Who would be surprised that some of those people are attractive in other ways, too?
The Term Paper on What Are Some Other Reasons That People Work?
... more than that. That is the very reason why people work. The first reason is that we can not only gain ... no doubt that some people work mainly for salary, that is to say, for money. Thanks to money, people can afford the goods ... above, we may easily come to the conclusion that people go to work for many different reasons not just because of money. ...
I met my first husband at work. I’m afraid we conformed to all the statistics: roughly the same everything, including initials. Dating while working in the same department was stressful because it felt so visible, because meetings were tremendously distracting. When we got married, we felt we had to invite the whole department. And when, years later, my husband died, I felt as though there was nowhere I could go that would not remind me of him.
But I wouldn’t change a thing. There’s no job or salary that would have dissuaded me from our relationship and denying it for the sake of work would have been preposterous. Our romance didn’t undermine my work or lessen my commitment; if anything, just the opposite. I was so driven to prove that I wasn’t merely lovelorn that I worked even harder than usual. After we got married, the one smart thing we did was to change departments. It was boring talking about work all the time, at the office and at home. But we were still devoted to the company and to our colleagues.
