The Ethics of Office Romance

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Are her smiles meant to be warm, flirtatious, or alluring? Is she simply a kind and caring person, is she interested in you romantically, or is she trying to curry favor with you? It's hard to know, especially if you are attracted to her, and there is nothing like physical attraction to make it difficult to think straight.

Let's suppose you are convinced she is not just a lovely person but is genuinely attracted to you. So you summon the courage to ask her out. Here is what can happen next:

A) She is aghast you've misunderstood her, and she now feels uncomfortable around you.

B) You have read the signs correctly, and she happily accepts your invitation because she really would like to get to know you better.

C) She is thrilled she has been able to manipulate you and is confident she'll be able to get what she wants from you and the company.

It doesn't matter which result occurs (or, for that matter, what the gender of either party is). All of the above are deeply problematic. If "A" happens, you have taken steps toward the creation of an offensive or hostile working environment and may have opened yourself and your company to a legitimate charge of sexual harassment. If "B" is what you get, the going may be great for a while but when the relationship fizzles, as it probably will, one or both of you will in all likelihood have to go. "C," of course, has disturbing implications in another direction, which I need not make explicit.

Questionable Practice

By the same token, if you have a fling with your boss that flames out, and you later don't get the promotion or raise you were counting on, can you be sure the broken romance wasn't the reason why? Can your boss?

We all know of a couple that met under inauspicious circumstances (boss/assistant, professor/student, therapist/patient), and today they are happily married or have been living in a committed relationship for many years. To borrow an expression from jurisprudence, however, hard cases make bad law. Just because a few folks here and there have been able to overcome the odds does not mean this practice is, for most people, wise, healthy, or ethical.

But If You Must

You may still find yourself irresistibly drawn to someone at work and, in spite of the above arguments, you intend to follow your heart (or whatever). I propose the following guidelines for such circumstances:

1. Proceed with your eyes wide open. Be prepared to accept the consequences, whether or not the relationship succeeds. If co-workers complain or your work suffers, you may have to be transferred to another department, or you may even lose your job, so have a backup plan for employment.

2. Be discreet. Even if everyone in the office knows love is in the air, do your best to avoid PDAs (i.e., public displays of affection, not personal digital assistants. I'll discuss those distractions in a future column).

3. Just don't do it if the object of your affection is your boss or assistant. There is no good way to effectively handle such relationships other than preventing them from happening in the first place.

In the workplace, the duties to do no harm, be respectful, and be fair mean we ought to think carefully about how our actions can affect our employer, our co-workers, and ourselves. Thus, there are good reasons to turn down Cupid's call for a chance at romance on the job. When Freud suggested that work and love are the two essential components of a happy life, I don't think he meant that we should find them in the same place.

(An invitation for you: Who is one of your role models and why? Let me know, and I may publish your response in a column on the topic. Write to Bruce@TheEthicsGuy.com.)

Join a debate about office romances.

Weinstein is the corporate consultant, author, and public speaker known as The Ethics Guy. He has appeared on numerous national TV shows and is the author of several books on ethics. His Ask the Ethics Guy! column appears every other week on BusinessWeek.com's Managing channel.