Office Romance
Because I am close with some of my father’s employees they don’t hesitate gossiping within earshot of where I’m standing. Some might call this eavesdropping but I can’t help it if I have dog ears.
I found out two of the sales associates were dating. Suddenly a light bulb went off—no wonder Jack felt the urge to take the new girl (Jill) under his wing and give her the heads up on how things run around here. He’s not one to go out of his way to help other sales associates succeed or steal his thunder.
Because they were dating I started to realize a few ways our store was changing—GOOD WAYS:
- Jack was happier at work.
- While Jack was taking Jill under his wing Jill became a better salesperson and it took the load of my parents having to train her.
- Sales that Jack couldn’t close he got Jill involved and together they were able to close.
- Jack felt comfortable turning customer’s over to Jill—before he might’ve let a few customers go because of ego (we have more females than males).
The BAD:
- Our other employees spent half their day gossiping about them.
- The other staff members were angry that he turned over customers of his to her and not other senior associates.
- Jack and Jill were sometimes flirtatious—but little enough for it NOT to bother my folks or for a customer to become aware of their relationship but just enough to have another thing the staff was talking about.
Overall their relationship wasn’t hurting the store. Jill was learning a lot from Jack and she has become one of our great sales associates. Because of theft we fired Jack and they ended up breaking-up. If Jack had not left our store I think the relationship wouldn’t have lasted (for many reasons—Jack was dating a different girl every other week) and we might’ve had a terrible situation on our hands.
How do you handle office romance? Do you have a policy in store that talks about dating? Their relationship only ended up increasing the stores sales—but what happens if the relationship goes bad—you might have a sticky situation on your hands?
Hedda Schupak commented:
You may as well try to stop a runaway train as an office romance.
Large companies often prohibit dating only between people in a
supervisory relationship or in the same department. In a small
company, however, it can be very disruptive. But with companies
asking fewer people to do more work, it's likely your employees
have less time to meet people, so you need to be fair. As a
manager, I'd suggest allowing it as long as it absolutely does not
interfere--either positively or negatively--in the office. The
minute it becomes obvious and there's any gossip or other
disruption because of it, the couple needs to choose between the
relationship and the job, and if it the relationship will win out,
one employee needs to either transfer or leave.
