As an employer, you may find romantic relationships in your workplace to be unfavourable and burdensome. Unfortunately, you cannot explicitly ban them from occurring. However, there are some practical steps you can take to manage this issue in your working environment. It is also important to consider your legal rights and obligations in relation to workplace relationships and to distinguish consensual relationships from sexual harassment. This article outlines some steps you can take to prevent and manage workplace romances.
Have Proper Policies in Place
Policy documents set out how employees are expected to conduct themselves in your workplace, and can detail such things as office communications and no touching or explicitly sexual conduct. By having it in writing, your employees will know precisely what you require of them.
Require Disclosure at the Outset
While it may not be comfortable, it is important that inter-office romantic relationships are disclosed so that you can manage them. Putting in place a system of disclosure will ensure you have the information needed to manage your team in such circumstances. You can implement this my including it in your workplace policy documents and distributing this to your employees. A proper system of disclosure will also encourage employees to disclose any workplace relationships if they occur.
Continue reading this article below the formBe Aware of Your Legal Rights
In a recent case, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) upheld the employer’s decision to terminate their employee based on, among other things, his romance with a member of staff under his management. Here, the commission indicated to employers and employees alike that dismissal can be justified due to the various ramifications that may arise as a result of an office relationship and, in particular, failure to disclose this to the employer.
Therefore, you should ensure that your employees are aware of the consequences they may face if they fail to disclose an office relationship to you. However, if you are considering dismissing an employee for this reason, you should contact an employment lawyer to make sure that you are not engaging in unfair dismissal.
As an employer, it is essential to understand what employment laws have changed and their implications for your business — particularly the changes to the Fair Work Act 2009 through the new Closing the Loopholes legislation.
Be Aware of Your Legal Obligations
In another recent case, the FWC found an employer to have unfairly dismissed an employee and ordered them to pay her maximum compensation. Her employment was terminated in circumstances where she had obtained a ‘restraining order’, as they are commonly referred to, against a co-worker, who also happened to be her former spouse. The FWC stated that such arrangements being inconvenient or uncomfortable for the employer did not give them the right to terminate the employee.
Take Employees’ Concerns Seriously
If an employee comes to you with an issue or a complaint arising from, for example, witnessing inappropriate or unacceptable behaviour between two of their colleagues, it is important that you take action. You may choose to hold counselling sessions between yourself and the two employees. In this case, you should document the process as evidence and seek legal advice where necessary.
Importantly, employers should ensure that they take ongoing proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment in their workplace. This includes:
- having a robust workplace policy and other control measures;
- holding regular training sessions for employees; and
- investigating any issues or concerns appropriately.
Key Takeaways
If you are having ongoing issues with romantic workplace relationships and need assistance managing the issue, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 1300 544 755 or visit our membership page.
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