Salon Romance Blooming? What to Do

You’ve heard rumors of a budding romance between two of your salon employees – what do you do? Scramble to put a policy together or ignore it? According to a recent interview with a labor expert, the answer is neither.

In a recent BusinessWeek article, attorney Mark Kluger advises against slapping together a policy against “office” relationships for a few reasons. The first is that you can’t stop human nature; the second is that making these types of relationships “forbidden” can increase the appeal and lead to sneaking around; and thirdly, you send a poor message about your company’s tolerance for employee liaisons – platonic or otherwise.

So, what should employers do? That depends on the couple. If they respect company time and don’t spend work hours gazing into each other’s eyes or flirting (in public or even via text), no action needs to be taken. However, you should address the couple to let them know that you are aware of the relationship. Tell them that as long as it doesn’t cause problems, you are fine with it. But if the couple is making their co-workers resentful of their wasted work time or annoying behavior, you must step in and tell them their jobs are on the line if they don’t cool their heels and get back to work.

If the dynamic of the couple is supervisor-subordinate, then management should take quick action because of the liability it opens up. Dangers can come from those affected directly or indirectly by the relationship: If the relationship goes sour, the subordinate can later complain they didn’t get a raise or promotion because he or she is no longer in that relationship; and co-workers can make claims that better projects are being given to the subordinate as sexual favoritism. That’s why it is advised to have mandatory sexual harassment training for supervisors warning of these scenarios. But, as mentioned, you can’t stop human nature. If a relationship has developed anyway, the dynamic should be broken immediately, so that one no longer reports to the other. As you can guess, this can present a big problem with small businesses, where there are no “other departments” to move employees around in. This harkens back to making the dangers aware to supervisors before a romance begins.

To read more on this subject, including the role of liability insurance, click on the source article.

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Source:

BusinessWeek: How Employers Should Handle a Workplace Romance