You’re the Boss: Making Sense of Romance in the Office

Sustainable Profits

The challenges of a waste-recycling business.

Courtesy of TerraCycle.Can we still have fun?

TerraCycle started as a project in my dorm room, a bunch of friends getting together every once in a while over a beer and talking about our first product, plant food made out of worm waste. I guess I was officially the chief executive and given that my friends didn’t get a salary — no one did back then — they were perhaps best described as interns.

Back then, no one would have thought twice about the chief executive having a romantic relationship with one of the “interns.” We were friends, we were the same age, and the company wasn’t even incorporated. Today, of course, I suspect the reaction would be very different if I were to have a similar relationship with an intern — even if we were friends and even if we were the same age (which, surprisingly, is still often the case).

Even when TerraCycle incorporated, we maintained a very liberal policy about romance in the workplace. In the early days, we used to throw these Friday night parties for our team and our friends that included hanging a big canvas and putting paints below it. As the party progressed and people finished painting the canvas, they would proceed to painting each other. Today we enjoy very civilized gatherings where we exchange gifts at the holidays and share pot-luck dinners.

But we’re all still human, and romance in the workplace remains an issue. As the company has matured and expanded into 19 countries and grown to 100 employees, some important questions have emerged: How should a company approach intra-office romance? Should relationships be discouraged or encouraged? What explicit policies should there be, if any? The challenge, obviously, is that there is serious legal risk when it comes to this topic. Sexual harassment in the workplace has created a never-ending supply of lawsuits (and a few great movies).

Sexual harassment is, of course, a very serious issue. Unscrupulous employers can hold tremendous power over the lives of young employees. And yet, I have also seen situations where accusers have been willing to lie in order to manipulate the system to extract a settlement. Because most companies carry insurance against such risks, there is often strong motivation for the company to settle these cases, regardless of the facts. These settlements can do terrible emotional damage to the falsely accused victims and their families.

So how does a company strike the right balance between canvas-painting parties and Puritanism while still maintaining a fun, dynamic, exciting work environment. Would it even be possible to remove romance from an office if you wanted to? If not, where do you draw the line?

Through the years, we’ve had lots of tricky situations. I remember  a number of years ago when two co-workers decided to date in the office, and unfortunately it created an awkward vibe that led to one leaving the company.  I know of another couple, also years ago, that had been dating for a few months and wanted to tell everyone but feared it would affect their relationships with co-workers. I only found this out later and wish that they hadn’t had to deal with such a burden. Currently, I know of two people who are interested in each other but are reluctant to pursue the romance because one works for TerraCycle and the other for one of our clients in Europe.

We continue to produce far more questions than answers. What if it’s a senior executive and an intern? What if the executive and the intern are close in age? What if they love each other? When should management get involved? Who wants to handle those conversations? I know there are companies that actually encourage office romances. How does that work? How do they handle the inevitable awkward situations? How much litigation insurance do they carry?

Because we continue to bring on a lot of interns, we decided to make a rule that no employee should have sexual relations with an intern. That said, we have never had to enforce the rule, and I don’t know what penalty we would levy if we did, which raises the question of whether it really is a rule. (Note to TerraCycle folks: don’t get any ideas!) Personally, I have been advised many times by my senior managers not to have relationships with employees. Given that I’m single and we happen to have an attractive work force, I have to concede that the thought has crossed my mind.

We continue to grapple with these questions over and over. I think I am coming to the conclusion that every situation, because it involves human beings and desire, is different. So I guess our answer to almost every situation, at least for now, is what the lawyers like to say: “It depends.”

Tom Szaky is the chief executive of TerraCycle, which is based in Trenton.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=45b992208998af1e61ca35e60fe86f6c