US office romance no longer gets the kiss-off: Poll
(USATODAY)
Updated: 2006-02-10 10:35

Finding love at the office is more likely and less taboo than in the past, suggest two new surveys on workplace romance to be released Thursday.

Forty percent of employees reported being involved in such a romance at some point in their careers, says a poll conducted jointly by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and CareerJournal.com, TheWall Street Journal's online career site.

Another survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corp. for America Online, found that 54% of single men and 40% of women said they would be open to dating a co-worker.

"People realize they're going to be at work such long hours, it's almost inevitable that this takes place," says Jessica Collison, manager of the SHRM survey program.

Because of potential sexual harassment, and fear of retaliation such as dismissal or transfer, workplace romance is a hot topic for managers and human resources professionals. While concern about sexual harassment related to office romance fell from 95% of those polled in 2001 to 77% four years later, fear of reprisal after a romance ends grew from 12% in 2001 to 67% in 2005.

Almost 500 professionals responded to the online survey conducted in November, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. About 400 others completed the poll at the career site. The surveys found that 72% of companies don't have policies on office romances.

The AOL survey, conducted in December, is based on more than 4,000 singles, ages 18 and older, who live in the 20 most populated areas of the USA. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. That survey also found 70% of men and 83% of women thought it was a bad idea to date the boss.

Keith Ferrazzi says his Los Angeles-based training and professional development firm deals with such questions "all the time."

Ferrazzi, author of the 2005 book Never Eat Alone, doesn't advocate dating at the office but says any such relationships should be honest and open to avoid creating distrust among co-workers.

"If you're hiding it, it may be that it's inappropriate," he says.

In most cases, employers should accept liaisons forged at work rather than ignore them, suggests new research from Great Britain. Chantal Gautier, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Westminster in London, presented work last month at a conference in Glasgow, detailing interviews with individuals who are romantically involved at work.

"It's not a question of whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. The question is it's happening and how are we going to deal with it?" says Gautier, who has twice been involved in an office romance.

Her interviews were typically with those already married or cohabiting who were having affairs with someone at work.

Ferrazzi doesn't recommend that kind of entanglement.

"My suggestion is, if you get into an office romance, this better be love," he says.