Contracts keep love in office romances

McClatchy Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When love blooms at work, “love contracts” may follow.

Dating often begins with hearts and flowers and Valentine’s Day cards, but it’s been known to end with harassment, retaliation claims and jury trials.

To protect themselves against lawsuits, some employers have begun asking co-workers to sign written confirmations that they have entered into voluntary relationships.

These formal documents typically affirm that “neither party wants their relationship with each other to affect their jobs or the company in any way.” Employees agree to abide by company-conduct policies while dating and after the relationship ends.

Lost-love litigation isn’t common, but when it hits, it can result in six-figure — and sometimes larger — jury awards for actual and punitive damages.

Human resource experts say it makes good business sense to get written acknowledgement that a workplace relationship is consensual. They point to such well-publicized cases as the 2005 ouster of the CEO of Boeing Co., whose board fired him after directors learned of his affair with an executive.

Staples Inc., Tyco International and Bendix Corp. also have been rocked by high-profile executive-employee liaisons.

Yet in the lower echelons of the workplace, co-worker dating flourishes. According to CareerBuilder.com, 40 percent of 8,038 workers surveyed in November said they had dated a co-worker at some point in their work lives.

What makes employment law attorneys and human resource officers especially nervous is when they learn an employee is dating his or her boss, as did about four in 10 of the intra-office daters who were polled.

That is the kind of relationship that, if it fails, has led to charges alleging sex for favors and other violations of workplace policies and laws. And that is where, if the romance is revealed, a lawyer is most likely to plop a love contract on the conference room table.