Managing Dissolved Workplace Romance: Policies & Processes Needed

This essay explores the phenomenon of workplace romance, its causes, and the critical need for organizations to implement policies and processes to manage the aftermath of dissolved relationships. It delves into the reasons why workplace romances occur, including time spent together, ease of opportunity, and physical attraction, while also acknowledging that these relationships often develop naturally over time. The essay further discusses the negative impacts of workplace romance dissolution, such as decreased productivity and disunity, emphasizing the importance of proactive management strategies. Key policies and processes examined include awareness programs and training to support affected employees, sexual harassment lawsuits to address power imbalances, and measures to protect both employees and ex-partners from harm and discrimination. The essay concludes by highlighting the shared responsibility of organizations and individual employees in maintaining professionalism and fostering a supportive work environment, even after a romantic relationship has ended.

Dealing With Workplace Romance
DEALING WITH WORKPLACE ROMANCE
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Dealing With Workplace Romance
Introduction
For quite some time, employees have been exposed to workplace romance, which makes it
necessary to divert all attention to the menace as it reduces organizational performance.
According to (Alder, 2014), workplace romance is a relationship between two organization
member’s with the presence of sexual attraction, communicated affection and recognition of
the relationship as something more than just a mere professional platonic. Statistics reveal
that in the world 40-47% of employees have been involved in workplace romance in their
workplace. From the 47% involved employees, the stats further show that 20% of them were
receptive to an office romance. According to (Azeez, 2016), workplace romance comes along
when two members of the same organization develop a relationship that has mutual
attraction. The author holds that the romance may damage both morale and productivity in
the workplace where organizations are in a state of imbroglio regarding whether to handle the
workplace relationship or not because they have not made out which department can be
charged with the mandate of handling the situation. Research shows that the number of
organizations has written policies for workplace romance has doubled since the year 2005
(Tengberg, 2014). Even though organizations are embracing policies to deal with the
workplace relationships, the percentage of those involved has not been declining due to two
reasons; firstly, many people decide to keep it a secret and therefore no one can notice,
secondly, with the advent of social media and virtual connectivity relationships can easily be
made and managed.
Background information
The reason as to why individuals engage in workplace romance has been a real paradox.
Many are the people who have been digging into the matter to establish reasons for the same,
but most of them come up with squinting evidence and unrealistic reasons. Anyway, various

Dealing With Workplace Romance
reasons lead to workplace romance depending on whom and who is involved in the romance.
According to (Fritz, 2014), workplace romance is brought about by several motives. The first
motive is time. When individuals intermingle for some time at the workplace, a relationship
develops naturally just the same case as when student interact for a long time in schools such
as universities and colleges.
Another motive is ease of opportunity. The motive holds that work provides close proximity
of coworkers. The most fundamental reason for this motive is the aspect of covering things
together, traveling together and doing many things together making it easy to share the same
experiences. It is also encouraged by the fact that one is likely to meet a person having
similar interests to his regarding their belief system (Rumens, 2017). Another major cause is
the hook-ups. Research shows that some of the workplace romances are brought about by the
desire to have physical relationships. Some of the people involved have testified that it is
“purely physical” and that it could continue forever if both parties are willing participants.
(Belinda, 2017), says that intensive emergency oriented tasks make relationship migrate from
work to being personal. Sometimes intensity blasts through relationship boundaries.
However, time factor tends to erode these boundaries. When people spend more time
together, they become more comfortable with each other and begin establishing some
attraction. When they became more comfortable, they begin sharing more. The sharing makes
them start viewing themselves as a couple which is partnered together. These people begin
viewing themselves in a rational context where sometimes coworkers reinforce this
perception if being a couple by recognizing them jointly as well as praising them for their
achievement (Shuck, 2017). In that case of a relationship, there comes a time when one both
of them loosens up allowing their boundary to slip. If they are not careful enough to
repeatedly reestablish the boundaries between their relationships within a certain framework,
then the partners will stop viewing their relationship as a normal professional platonic but

Dealing With Workplace Romance
rather something more romantic. Considering the number of working hours, most one’s time
is spend working in an office. A combination of time spent together, the intensity and
partnering caused by tasks that are related to work, breed workplace romance.
From the above discussion, it is precisely clear that workplace romance is something that
evolves slowly and over a long period depending on the participants. It is purely natural and
sometimes people find themselves into it unawareness. It is arguably true that most of the
workplace relationships are not planned but develops over time as a result of daily
interactions, and spending time together (Mohammad, 2016). Even though workplace
romance is natural, the good news is that it can as well be avoided in several ways. One of
these ways is keeping professional. As discussed earlier, workplace romance comes along
when one or both parties loosen and the boundaries between their relationship slips. When
corrective measures are not taken to re-establish the professionalism of their relationship,
then workplace romance comes along (Freeman, 2015). When individuals remain
professional and do their job, workplace romance may be avoided. This move also calls for
professionalism in the use of social media. Loosening up in social media fuels workplace
romance.
Main focus
As discussed earlier in this paper, there are varying causes of workplace romance. Since that
has been dealt with and we have already known that it is something that is not factual, it
becomes imperative to get a glimpse of the impacts of workplace romance dissolution.
Sometimes these relationships come to an end with both parties continuing to work in the
same organization. That brings a state of bad feeling and discomfort in the workplace. It leads
to disunity and teamwork goes down. Workplace romance dissolution brings about workplace
complications as the coworkers eliminate even the professional relationship they had (Lu,

Dealing With Workplace Romance
2017). That has a negative impact on productivity. Overall, dissolution of a workplace
romance has numerous effects, and it, therefore, becomes imperative to develop policies and
strategies to manage its aftermath. Companies or organizations can respond to the same using
different policies and processes. Firstly, awareness programs and training are very important.
Both the victims of a dissolved workplace romance are left in a state of confusion, and that
may adversely affect their performance and in the organization and therefore they ought to be
supported to fight the situation and ease the transition. Human beings are shaped in such a
way that it is hard to find consolation within oneself and this prompts the importance of
awareness programs and training. The organization ought to develop a team that advises the
victims of a dissolved workplace romance and help them get out of it successfully
(Johansson, 2017). Whenever dissolution of the relationships occurs, victims should be free
to get assistance from a pre-existing body solely put up for dealing with such issues where the
victims are counseled stepwise and informed of the dos and don'ts for a quick recovery.
Sexual harassment lawsuit is another critical policy aimed at managing a dissolved workplace
romance. In most of the times, workplace romance is vertical where the senior target the
junior employees with claims of providing favors. Sometimes these lower level employees
turn down the offer. Unrelenting employees suffer sexual assault and harassment. That may
prompt them to file a lawsuit. The company must set up guidelines on the filing of the
lawsuit, its implications as well as to what extent would sexually assault call for sexual
harassment lawsuit compensation (Cowan, 2016). Victims of sexual assault should have the
freedom of finding legal assistance whenever the need arises. Sometimes support in this
manner may call for the provision of a lawyer for the assaulted victim by the organization in
case he/she does not have one. This approach is one of the best because it ensures that victims
transit easily and that those caught with offenses are subjected to the required legal

Dealing With Workplace Romance
punishment to ensure that they don’t repeat the same and that others employees shun the
behavior.
Protecting the employees is yet another crucial strategy. In most of the times, the voiceless
employees give into workplace relationships due to fear and lack of policies protecting them.
However, the good news is that most of the organizations in the modern day world are
embracing and implementing workplace romance policies to protect junior employees
(Clegg, 2016). While that is happening, workplace romance has not yet come to a halt. An
organization, therefore, ought to have a completely functional policy which put forward the
disciplinary actions that are to be taken by officers sexually assaulting employees. The
framework should comprise provisions giving a stern warning to those planning to do the
same. Employees should always have the feeling that they are protected and that their rights
can’t be easily are violated and exposed to sexual torture (Bellmore, 2015). In case if an
ended workplace relationship, the organization should protect the victims of any danger such
as seclusion. Victims of a terminated workplace romance should not at any time lose their
sense of self-worth in the organization. Both they and their property in the organization must
be secure to be able to recover faster.
Another crucial practice an organization can take to deal with the aftermath of a dissolved
workplace romance is the protection of the ex-partner. After an ended relationship, usually,
one of the partners considered to be the cause of the dissolution is ill-treated. Ill-treatment
involves aspects such as hatred, betrayal in the face of the employer, physical violence, and
even assassination (Bhebhe, 2019). An organization should protect such a victim so that
nothing bad appears to him or her. In the organization environment, the victim should not feel
like an outcast and should be given equal opportunities as the rest of the employees. To
adequately protect the ex-partner, the organization can come up with a framework of rules
and regulations prohibiting any type of violence within and without the organization for its

Dealing With Workplace Romance
employees (Chan-Serafin, 2017). The policies should show consequences of deviation from
the stipulations. Sometimes the impact of a dissolved workplace romance is too huge that a
victim may end up losing his or her job. An organization should provide job security for the
ex-partner. Even if a higher employee attempts to cancel the contract of a lower employee
who turned down or broke a relationship, the company should stand for the truth and protect
the job of the victimization victim.
While an organization has a role to play in the management of the aftermath of a dissolved
workplace romance, it also should be appreciated that the victims also have a critical role to
play. When the organization is playing its part, an individual victim should play his or her
role too. For instance, a victim should keep professional and treat the ex-partner as a co-
worker (Byun, 2014). That can be achieved by making all the communications polite and
professional even than any other person. Another management strategy is avoiding gossiping
about the ex-partner and limit interactions with the person. One ought to channel all his/her
energy in work and stop focusing or thinking about the broken relationship.
Conclusion
Workplace romance is evident in both modern dual and ancient workplaces. These workplace
relationships are usually fuelled by long conduct hours together as well as a sense of
commonness among the same organization employees. Employee trips and tours also
increase the chances of workplace romance. In some cases, senior employees demand
workplace relationships with junior employees in exchange for other favors within the
workplace. That is something that against both work and leadership ethics. The advent of
social media and virtual connectivity has eased the beginning and maintenance of workplace
romance. Organizations have a moral duty and obligation to protect their employees from
sexual assault as well as ex-partners from any harm. Individual employees also have a role to

Dealing With Workplace Romance
play in dealing with the aftermath of a dissolved workplace romance. Conclusively,
workplace romance, however natural, it can be avoided by remaining professional and
keeping a professional boundary between fellow employees.
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