Consensual Relationship Agreement
Employers have always been very carefully about interpersonal relationships within employees. They realize the need to protect themselves from legal actions that may arise as a result of these love encounters. Workplace romance can lead to accusations of poor judgment, breaches of ethics, favoritism, lost productivity, poor employee morale, sexual harassment claims and even workplace violence. As a result of these issues, the companies have developed a new documentation for the employees called consensual relationship agreement.
A consensual Relationship agreement also known as a “Love Contract” is one in which two people from mutually consent in an emotionally (romantic) and physical (sexually) intimate relationship and frees the employer from any litigation that may arise as a result of a breakup. By having both parties sign this document, they are immediately place on an active notice of their separate rights and responsibilities during the course of the relationship and after its possible demise. It affirms that the signees are aware of the company’s policies on sexual harassment and workplace ethics and understand the consequences of failure to follow those policies.
So far, these agreements may be perceived as beneficial for the sake of the organization but how does this action affects the employee?
Primarily the use of this agreement violates the privacy of the employee. Just the merely request to sign such a contract, can be perceive as an intrusion to the staff personal life. Also another ordeal is how the company determines who is having a relationship with whom? This can create discomfort with both parties that may want it to keep their personal live private and can create a perception of harassment from part of the organization. It also put human resources professional in an awkward position of managing employee’s personal relationships.
It’s merely impossible to prevent employees to be attracted with one and the other, so I believe it’s important to have policies and procedures in place to address it when it occurs. Instead of using these types of consensual agreements, the company can adopt policies on romance at work in order to prevent uncomfortable situations that might arise between the people actually involved in the dating relationship. The policy can include that the organization is not responsible for the romantic relationship unless it affects performance for the organization. It can also include that if a manager decides to be romantically attached to a reporting employee, the manager will have to switch positions within the company. This will prevent any case of favoritism with colleagues at the same department. When an employer decides to roll out these policies, it must carefully consider how best to train employees so that they clearly apprehend want is and is not appropriate behavior at work.con

www.nytimes.com (New York times)