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Tags: Human Rights Act, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace relationships
Categories: Employment Law
I have to confess to a conflict of interest on this subject as I met my husband at work over 20 years ago. Whenever I’ve been asked to review the odd ‘relationship at work’ policy for clients I’ve understandably felt slightly uncomfortable!
Workplace relationships will always be in the news
This topic gets discussed whenever a high-profile workplace relationship hits the news. At the moment of course it’s been prompted by Phillip Scofield’s admission of an affair with a younger colleague on the This Morning team. Last year, it was two news anchors on ABC. Before that Steve Easterbrook, CEO of McDonalds was fired over a consensual relationship with a colleague. That relationship breached their policy that staff who have a direct or indirect reporting line to each other should not be in a relationship. There have been and will be countless others.
Many businesses, usually American-owned, have ‘relationships at work’ policies. BlackRock, a huge asset management firm, hit the headlines when it extended its policy to include a requirement to disclose relationships with external clients and vendors as well as other employees. Once disclosed to HR, the relationship will be assessed to see if it could create an actual or perceived conflict of interest. If so, the employees could be subject to “alternative work arrangements”. BlackRock takes this very seriously having previously dismissed two executives (including the Global HR lead!) for failing to disclose work relationships.
Somewhere between 15-20% of people in the UK claim to meet a partner at work. Even with the numbers of workers now working from home, work romances remain very much ‘a thing’. Zoom has merely replaced the vending-machine flirtation or phone call. Psychologists have shown that mere exposure to someone increases our attraction to them. Given that many of us spend much more time with colleagues than our partners, family or friends, is it any surprise that many relationships start at work?
What does UK employment law say?
These work relationship fall-outs (and policies) often come from the States. In the UK however, there are no general legal rules governing relationships at work. That said, employers are increasingly choosing to have relationship policies which set out the expectations for, and procedures to be followed when relationships start between colleagues. Preventing relationships altogether though may be unrealistic!
What risks do workplace romances bring to employers?
The most obvious risks are sex discrimination and harassment claims. In our experience, these can result when the relationship breaks down. Any work-place claim for sex discrimination can be costly for an employer. When you add up possible compensation, management time, investigation costs, damage/impact on reputation as well as legal costs, these claims are best avoided.
Whilst most cases of these type ‘settle’ before an Employment Tribunal hearing, there have been high profile cases involving compensation claims running into six figures where someone has lost their job after a relationship breakdown.
If or when a work relationship breaks down, you may also find a valuable team member leaving the business because they don’t wish to interact with their ‘ex’ on a daily basis. You might also see grievances being raised when one party acts inappropriately towards another.
Work relationships can bring problems for employers even if they’ve not broken down. Concerns around favoritism or inconsistent treatment are not uncommon. These can be in relation to hiring, promotion or pay rises and the allocation of attractive projects or accounts. Then you have the dangers of power imbalances or confidential information being told to the wrong person (‘pillow talk’!), conflicts of interest and simple team resentment. My colleague had a boss who was having an affair with one of the senior Directors. Because of that relationship, no-one on the team felt able to call out the boss’s bullying. Complaints were disregarded so team members chose instead to leave the business.
Is banning workplace relationships actually realistic?
In our collective experience at Menzies Law, we think not. However we do understand why businesses want to consider policies which help reduce their risk and exposure.
Employment policies completely banning workplace relationships are both rare and potentially unworkable in the UK. Prohibiting relationships between two consenting adults or making it an offence not to disclose such relationships is probably a breach of the Human Rights Act which guarantees employees the right to privacy and a family life. A ‘banning’ policy is pretty impossible to police (when does a ‘relationship start’ exactly?).
Additionally such policies can also cause resentment with knock-on effects on recruitment and retention. Unless there was evidence of actual misconduct, dismissal of one or both employees simply for having a consensual relationship and not telling you is going to be a difficult one to justify in an Employment Tribunal. In the ABC and McDonald’s examples mentioned earlier, there were detailed policies in place yet they did not prevent relationships developing.
How can an employer reduce its risk?
Given recent headlines, employers can be forgiven for wanting to consider adopting a ‘relationships at work’ policy. They perhaps want to warn staff against inappropriate behaviour, abuse of authority, the dangers of favoritism and conflicts of interest. Maybe they want to suggest which relationships are or aren’t acceptable.
If you do want to create a policy, do consider the following:
If you treat your employees like adults, our experience is that they can usually be expected to act like them. Human nature means that no amount of policy can prevent personal relationships developing at work but with some thought, you can negate at least some of the worst risks to your business.
If you’d like advice on anything I’ve covered in this blog, please get in touch. And if you’d like to read more on this topic, take a look at this blog written by Luke Menzies a few years ago.
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