Office romance is a funny thing. Put together a bunch of men and women for hours on end, five days a week, and some of those men and women are bound to develop feelings for each other. Yet every company’s HR department has all sorts of rules and regulations about dating within the office. Workplace relationships are often seen as taboo. Is it ever okay to date a coworker? If so, how can you make sure that your relationship doesn’t cost you your job?
If you find yourself attracted to a coworker, get your facts straight before you make a move on him or her. Consult your company’s HR guidelines to see what kind of policy they have in place regarding dating coworkers. Whether they have an established set of rules or not, it’s typically a good idea for direct reports and supervisors to avoid dating each other. This means that you shouldn’t date your boss or anyone who considers you to be their immediate boss. Some people would take that rule a step farther and say that you shouldn’t date anyone that reports to anyone under you or anyone who’s directly above your boss. Basically, whether you’re a director who’s fallen for the SVP that your boss, the vice president, reports to, or you’re the SVP in love with the director, your relationship will seem questionable. Your boss (the VP) may feel uncomfortable reprimanding you for fear that his boss, who is also your S.O., will punish him for doing so. Likewise, he might hesitate to promote you for fear it will appear to be favoritism. In a situation like this, if your feelings are deep and you think this relationship has potential, you need to discuss it with the object of your affection, and then one of you should try to find a job elsewhere. At the very least, one of you should attempt to transfer into a different department wherein neither of you will be reporting to each other in any way.
If neither of you reports to each other, you can feel fairly comfortable starting your relationship. Whether you’re in the same department and on the same level, or in different departments on different levels, no one else at the company will have to worry that one of you will be sleeping your way to the top. However, you really need to be sure that the coworker you’re about to ask out shares your feelings. You’re going to have to work together whether they accept your request for a date or not, so you don’t want to experience awkwardness as a result of rejection. Once you’re pretty positive that your coworker is interested in you, confess your feelings and ask them out. If you both feel the first couple of dates go well, you should plan a time to talk to an HR person. Go together and let the HR person know that the two of you have begun a relationship, and you just want to make sure that there won’t be any issues as a result. Then you’ll need to let your other coworkers know. There’s no need to round everyone up and hold a meeting, but you should both feel free to tell a few of the other employees that you’re friends with. Word will get around, but it will be better if you are the ones who started the word in the first place. That way there won’t be room for any bizarre rumors to pop up.
A time may come when your office romance begins to go south. If the two of you ultimately break up, you’ll need to be extra careful about how you act at work. If there’s way too much anger between the two of you, one of you will have to find a job elsewhere. Hopefully, though, you’ll be able to avoid each other in the office as much as possible, and keep any drama out of the workplace. Whether it succeeds or fails, the best way to conduct an on-the-job romance is to be as responsible and open about it as possible. Clearing things with HR and cluing in your other coworkers will relieve a lot of stress, leaving you both more time to enjoy your relationship.