Workplace romance policies may not always be applicable because employees are
already aware of setting boundaries and maintaining professional relationships. As employees,
they are aware of work-related matters and the ones that they should not indulge with as
professionals.
However, for some, working in the same company for a long time may result in a
romantic relationship. They believe that it is relevant to look into and check what the law
specifies in the local labor laws in a country earlier in endorsing a policy since regulating
relationships in the workplace is legal. Considering its legality, it lessens the worry of employers
on possible harmful costs of workplace romance among employees. This may include
harassment such as sexual harassment that may lead to the immorality of acts once the romantic
connection between and among employees has ended. Workplace attraction is concerned with
personal gains and focused on personal benefits and complications, while colleagues tended to
classify organizational impacts (Chory & Hoke, 2019). These findings of the study give
implications on the challenge to work and personal life balance which is difficult to handle in
most cases especially when involved people stay and work on the same company. It also points
to young workers who at first exude passion towards work but did not pursue it due to being
confronted with romantic connections in the company. Being in this stage, called the millennial
stage, unbalanced work ethics and emotions are still evident. In other words, people who are
critics of not regulating workplace romance believe that since the law supports it, it can sustain
healthy working relationships when everyone is guided by policies enacted by employers. Not
only it will help employees but also on their performance and the performance of the companies.
It may be true that when employees are endowed and oriented on the legal policies of a
company, workplace romance, and its effects may be mitigated. On the contrary, the employee’s
romantic involvement influences job engagement and performance. Hyo and Yoon (2020) have
found out that exhibiting increased effectiveness in work becomes the result of having a
favorable and positive connection or relationship among others in a company. This breaks the
idea of complying with policies don’t always mean putting difficulties to work relationship and
setting aside important work-related tasks. In an industry where growth should always be the top
priority and is set on the minds of all employees, the romantic connection is a factor to consider
and served as a loophole of the previous idea mentioned.
In addition, having an environment of sharing romantic feelings and forming helpful
relationships between and among employees lead to their satisfaction in the company. This
serves as a motivation for employees not only to perform their best but also to be consistent with
their job performance. It may also decrease the chance of employees resigning or transferring to
other companies and even venturing into different fields once they felt exhausted or depreciated.
Implementing policies on workplace romance would not be easy for employers because it
controls the social and emotional well-being of employees. One of the considerations of workers
in staying and remaining firm with a company is not always the compensation, greater chance is
the emotional state that they sustain, the belongingness they feel, and the rapport that they build.
No matter how good policies are, they just stay and are applied within the physical structure of
the company. Employees go home, visit places, and attend to other matters; these are the
downsides of enforcing policies on workplace romance.
Therefore, employers have limitations on how should they manage their employers.
These limitations must be respected, if not, they may be defocused on monitoring their
employees’ job performance. Once, this matter is not properly discussed and not communicated
well with employees, they may feel being hardened, controlled, and manipulated. There is more
to work out than implementing policies on workplace romance, these can be managerial policies
that would promote every employee’s personal and professional growth. Some of these are team
buildings, recreational activities, and company-sponsored events; through these, attitudes
towards work among employees would possibly be high rather than putting them on limits. After
all, as workers, they know the risk of indulging in romantic affairs at work.
References
Rebecca M. Chory & Hailey Grace Gillen Hoke (2019) Young Love at Work: Perceived
Effects of Workplace Romance among Millennial Generation Organizational
Members, The Journal of Psychology, 153:6, 575-
598, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2019.1581722
Jung, Hyo S., and Hye H. Yoon. 2020. "How Does Workplace Romance Influence
Employee Performance in the Hospitality Industry?" Sustainability 12, no. 13: 5478.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135478
