Internal affairs (2/15/98, The N&O)

Sunday
February 15, 1998

Internal affairs

Bosses might not like office romances but are learning to deal with the reality of love on the job

By SHANNON BUGGS, Staff Writer

     Downsizing, low unemployment and a high demand for technology have turned many Triangle residents into workaholics who put in 60-, 70-, 80-hour weeks.
     Those kind of hours leave single folks with precious few opportunities to meet and date someone who doesn't work with them. So, they're doing what people have always done: date their colleagues, bosses and subordinates.
     Only now, if they want, couples can do so openly.
     Companies that for years have prohibited or ignored these mergers are, if not embracing them, at least accepting and learning to manage them. The corporate change of heart has more to do with common sense than romantic notions.
     After all, the workplace is one of the most popular places to meet potential significant others. According to a 1994 American Management Association survey, about a quarter of U.S. workers have dated a colleague at some point.
     "There are studies that show that most people meet their spouses at work," says Ellen Peirce, a professor of law and ethics at the Kenan-Flager Business School of the University of North Carolina. "It's pretty impossible to prevent people from dating."
     Nan and Gary Toppin met on his first day of work in October 1995 at Cisco Systems, which does not have a no-dating policy. Two weeks later, the network engineers began dating.
     "When you spend so much time at work, the people you get to know best are the ones you work with," says Nan Toppin, who estimates that they spend 50 to 60 hours a week working at the computer networking company in Research Triangle Park.
     When the couple became engaged in October 1997, they sent e-mail messages to their bosses to announce their Jan. 10 wedding.
     "They were joyous," Gary Toppin says. "The director replied within five minutes to congratulate us."
     Such permissiveness doesn't mean that human resource directors are going to become cubicle Cupids, setting up CEOs and interns. Most corporations still restrict dating between supervisors and subordinates, but workers are no longer fired for following their hearts.
     "This shows a sensitivity to the fact that workers are human beings instead of automatons at their beck and call to do their work," Peirce says.
     At Wal-Mart, if an associate and supervisor are found to be dating, the associate typically is transferred, says Les Copeland, a spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based mass retailer. "It's a simple policy, and every associate knows about it early on in a career," he says.
     At IBM, romantically-involved managers and staffers are encouraged to tell their supervisors about the relationship and also to be prepared for new assignments. But it's usually the manager who is moved, says Bob Page, a Research Triangle Park spokesman for the computer conglomerate.
     "Managers generally have more flexibility in terms of movement than the employee," he says.
     That wasn't the rule 10 years ago when IBM put a no-dating policy into effect and engineer Michael Patten had just started seeing his manager. At the time, the employee in the junior position would be dismissed if the relationship was discovered, he says.
     "We lived together in secret for two years," says Patten, who retired from IBM in October after 30 years.
     The relationship eventually was broken off, and Patten says he started dating again and wound up marrying someone outside IBM. The new romance made for a ticklish relationship with his superior.
     "My career took a pretty big toll after that romantic relationship ended," says Patten, who declined to identify his former lover.
     He says she refused to transfer him and, rather than risk losing his pension, Patten stayed in what he calls a dead-end job for eight years. He says he couldn't go to anyone in the company without revealing his secret and possibly losing his job.
     Most non-dating policies were put in place to prevent just such situations, say human resource directors at area companies. Many were designed to protect female employees, many of whom were the junior associates, secretaries and clerks left without support when affairs ended.
     The politics of office romances began to change in the 1970s as more middle-class and college-educated women joined the work force. As they climbed the corporate ladder, they pointed out the inequities in these relationships and demanded fair treatment.
     Uncertain of how to manage employees' private lives, some companies maintained unofficial "don't ask, don't tell" policies. Other employers answered with written policies designed to discourage dating. These became more popular in the '80s as sexual harassment prevention tools.
     "Human resource departments felt that office relationships were a nuisance and created the potentiality of a lawsuit, so they developed these policies," says Kenan-Flagler's Peirce.
     And that's where Corporate America messed up, says Ellen Bravo, co-director of 9 to 5 National Association of Working Women, who approves of the new corporate attitude.
     "Dating is not sexual harassment," she says. "There is no law against asking someone for a date."
     But workplace experts counter that dating policies buffer companies from hostile environment, wrongful termination and sexual harassment lawsuits. A dating policy also makes good business sense, says Wal-Mart's Copeland, "because it prevents favoritism, either perceived or real, in the workplace."
     "An official policy at least gets people to think twice about bringing their personal lives into the workplace," says Howard Aldrich, a sociology and business professor at UNC-CH.
     While Patten says IBM's dating policy did not discourage his relationship, he thinks his career would have been helped if the affair had occurred in the current, more accepting environment.
     But human resource consultants say that even with relationships out in the open, employees still need to practice discretion.
     "Companies don't want to be inside their workers' bedrooms and resent when they're put in that position," says Don Azevedo, a Cary psychologist who advises companies on dating policies. "An office affair could seriously damage a person's reputation and career."
     Patricia and Alvin Atkins kept that in mind during their courtship at York Properties. The two met while he was renovating the realtor's offices. She was the office administrator. Co-workers noticed their sidelong looks at each other before they did. And no one was surprised when he sent her a basket of roses on Valentine's Day 1995. They were married a year and a half later.
     "I always went to work just to work," says Patricia Atkins, "but this was quite a romance."
     But the couple was discreet -- no holding hands, no kissing in the office. "We didn't want to cause any talk, and we were real careful about our reputations," she says.
     The Toppins also kept a low profile at Cisco Systems.
     "We kept it quiet but not because we were afraid that we'd be fired or anything," Gary Toppin says. "We just felt it was best to keep our personal lives outside of work."
     Azevedo says that whether dating colleagues have an ideal relationship or a stormy one, employers need to be aware of the situation and prepared to step in.
     "Companies have always been involved in the personal lives of their employees," he says. "They tell them what to wear and where to live, and they should be prepared to tell them when their relationships are creating problems."
     Companies should get involved, Azevedo says, when dating co-workers are wasting the workday or when office romances create rumors of favoritism. He recommends that employers develop a plan to guide supervisors who may not know how to discuss an office romance with employees. Such assistance is especially helpful when the relationship is an extramarital affair.
     Azevedo cautions companies not to make any hard and fast rules, such as immediate termination for people who violate policies or cheat on spouses. A model for such plans could be a company's ethics policy.
     Businesses can, however, avoid all of these dating dilemmas, Azevedo says, if they make some fundamental shifts in the way they do business. He recommends cutting back on overtime hours and road trips.
     "If you don't want them to date at work," he says, "then you have to give them time to date elsewhere."

Shannon Buggs can be reached at 829-4881 or sbuggs@nando.com

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