Recruiters warned of the dangers of work relationships
Recruiters have been urged to ensure they have a robust ‘relationships at work’ policy in place, as new research reveals almost half of office workers fantasise about having sex with a colleague.
The research from office supply store Printerland.co.uk also reveals 11% fancy sleeping with their boss, while 42% want to canoodle with colleagues or clients.
Commenting on the research, employment lawyer Christopher Tutton, partner at law firm Constantine Law, told Recruiter agencies should introduce relationship policies aimed at heading off any conflict of interests that could arise due to such workplace relationships.
“Relationship policy means they are obliged to tell the business that there is a relationship with another colleague going on and acknowledge that may create a conflict of interest in certain situations; HR is one of the areas where it can create a conflict or a perceived conflict.
“Say you’ve got an employee, who’s going through a pay review. He happens to be in a relationship with somebody in HR, then the other employees that aren’t getting as favourable treatment on a pay review, for example, might feel there’s some unfairness there because there’s a relationship going on.”
Tutton added it is difficult for employers to manage these sorts of situations if they do not know about them.
“If you’re having a relationship at work and if that conflict of interest arises, employers can do things to prevent the risks that could flow from it coming about. So they might say your line management has changed or certain decisions about you now need to be made by someone else, or we need to move you to a different department to try and stop it arising.”
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