Love between the cubicles

You're thrilled about your new office romance but your boss doesn't share your enthusiasm.
Here are a few things to keep in mind while seeing someone at your workplace.
You can't really predict where and when you are going to find love, and it's quite likely that you might find Mr Right at your workplace. However, the road to an office romance is often a rocky one, with bosses and co-workers making no secret of their disapproval of such distracting alliances.According to a Workplace Romance Survey commissioned by Team Lease Services, a Bangalore based HR services company, 56 per cent of those polled felt that quality and efficiency suffered due to romantic liaisons at workplaces! Gopa Banerji, branch head, Delhi, Brand-Comm, agrees, “Intimate relationships often develop and frequently result in negligence and shoddy work.Frequent teacoffee breaks become routine at the cost of precious work time.“
According to a 2013 survey conducted by the global human resources organisation, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), complaints of favouritism among co-workers, decreased productivity, claims of sexual harassment, sharing of confidential information between co-workers, and ugly break-ups are some of the top reasons why office romances cause apprehension among employers.
KEEP IT LOW KEY
“As long as the relationship is kept decent under all office norms, HR should not have any issues,“ says Banerji. “But when two employees take advantage of the workplace and go against office rules, HR has the right to give a warning to the involved employees to behave themselves or else, take disciplinary steps.“
TELL YOUR BOSS
Samaira Menon, 28, a Chennai-based journalist, found her husband sitting next to her cabin at work. It wasn't long before the relationship became serious, but she ensured that no one got a whiff of the romance. “At work, we were all business,“ says Menon. However, the couple did face some amount of trepidation when they decided to reveal the relationship to their department heads.“We were worried about our jobs, so we mailed our HR to check on the company policy. As we belonged to different teams, we were relieved to find that being a couple would not be an issue. Later, we mailed our bosses who were sweet about it too.“
A CLEAN BREAK-UP
If you do happen to break up, claiming harassment or creating ugly scenes in the office will not further your career prospects. Sumit Sinha, HR manager, Ravissant, says, “The management doesn't concern itself with an employee's personal life as long as it doesn't affect hisher performance. And we are clear that an employee cannot cry harassment in the event of a break-up.“
So, the bottom line is to think about appearances, stay professional and be discreet.
WORK ROMANCES ON THE RISE!
Whether bosses like it or not, studies have shown that romantic liaisons in the workplace are on the rise and the good news is that it does not always lead to a difficult choice between a career and a love life. The key, however, is ensuring that work does not get hampered and that PDA is kept for after hours.
(By Anindita Ghosh)