Time: Holiday party hookups are good for employees – and none of HR’s business
———Philosophy’s Neil McArthur, Associate Director Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, co-wrote an article with Marina Adshade on office romances for Time.
As they write:
…People are doing more than just having holiday flings. Forty-three percent of HR personnel report knowledge of current romances between employees at their firm, and 40% of people admit to having been involved in an office romance at some point in time.
Many of these romances lead to marriage. In fact, among couples that married between 2005 and 2012, meeting through work was the second most common way couples met (14%) trumped only by meeting on online dating sites (16%).
Those statistics have left some employers feeling more like Scrooge than Santa. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in corporate policies that punish employees for having on-the-job romances.
…Employers are cracking down on workplace relationships, and in the process are inflicting real costs on themselves and their workers. So there must be some evidence to justify the increasing involvement of firms in the private lives of their employees…right?
Not really. And, in fact, there are some good reasons why employers should be tolerant towards workplace romance.