A total ban against forming personal relationships at work is likely to breach the right of employees to have a private life. Your client may also find that it is impossible to implement a total ban because employees who do wish to form a relationship will simply enter in to one in secret. Secret relationships are difficult for employers to manage and could lead to an increase in issues such as gossip, rumours and even complaints about favouritism.
Employers are increasingly introducing policies on workplace relationships to try and combat these issues. Having a formal policy allows employers to proactively manage workplace relationships to ensure they’re not having a negative impact at work. A policy could contain a requirement for employees to tell managers when they’ve entered in to a relationship. It can also outline what behaviour is and isn’t appropriate during working hours. The policy can reserve the right for the employer to move individuals who are in a personal relationship; this is often useful where a manager enters in to a relationship with a junior in their team.
Managers should be trained on how to enforce the policy. This may be an awkward and embarrassing policy to implement but it’s important to get this right to reduce the possibility of complaints being made, to stop a negative effect on productivity and to ensure attendance is not affected. Other policies will also be important to implement, for example, those on confidentiality and disclosures of information.
One thing that all employers need to ensure is that personal relationships are not blurring the lines between acceptable behaviour and sexual harassment. Again, training all members of staff on appropriate conduct and how this should be managed is key. Any complaints of sexual harassment should be dealt with seriously; not doing so could leave the business open to a costly tribunal claim.
