Legal Issues and Harassment Problems When Employees Date

If you have business, relationships between co-workers can be a sticky situation. On the one hand, you know (or should know) that relationships within the workplace can lead to sexual harassment lawsuits and liability.

On the other hand, you don’t want to be the jerk telling employees that they cannot date; love is love and people find each other in all kinds of ways, and if your coworker finds “the one” at work, it can be hard to be the one to tell them no.

When Supervisors are Involved

It should be clarified that there is a difference between two equal co-workers dating, and co-workers dating supervisors, superiors, managers or owners—anybody in the company with power or authority over them.

This dynamic almost never ends well and can be a recipe for liability.

The problem is that there’s a legitimate argument to say that a relationship between an employee who has power at work over another employee is never truly consensual. There is always an element of coercion or fear or manipulation involved.

Quid Pro Quo Lawsuits

You run the very real risk of a quid pro quo lawsuit, where a supervisor expects dates, sexual favors, or the continuation of the relationship from the “lower” employee and conditions job performance on those things. Or, the supervisor punishes the other employee for ending the relationship, or punishes them at work because of an argument they had at home.

What About Equal Co-Workers?

Relationships between two equal co-workers still can lead to liability.

The problem is figuring out what is consensual and what is not as between those employees. Today, they are happy and dating. Tomorrow, they may not be, and those same sexual advances are no longer consensual, they are unwanted harassment in the workplace.

As an employer, you may not know the status of their relationship, or have any ways to keep up with it. Many relationships are volatile or are “on and off.” This can even give rise to two employees who have different opinions on the status of the relationship, one saying they are still involved, and the other denying it, putting your company in the middle of that dispute to determine what is and what is not consent or harassment.

Hostile Work Environment

Spurned employees can end up telling intimate details of the pair’s encounters together to others in the workplace, giving rise to hostile work environment situations.

When one person dates multiple people in the office, you also have a recipe for hostile work environment harassment. Simple consensual affection between two co-workers can end up making the environment harassment and hostile, to a former lover, or an ex that still works in the office.

Relationship Agreements

Many companies have resorted to employees signing consensual relationship forms, where they tell the company that they are in a relationship or not, and advise when they are no longer in the relationship. This can protect you to some degree, because the onus is now on the employee, and not the company itself, to report the end of a relationship.

Avoid harassment in the workplace. Call the West Palm Beach business litigation lawyers at Pike & Lustig today for your employment law needs.

Source:

legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/articles/what-is-quid-pro-quo-harassment#:~:text=Quid%20pro%20quo%20harassment%20in%20the%20workplace&text=In%20most%20cases%2C%20quid%20pro,better%20hours%2C%20promotion%2C%20etc.