Despite the Risks, Office Romances Remain Attractive

The office romance: Almost everybody knows somebody who is having one.

Once considered taboo, these romances have been the staple of gossip and popular magazine articles for years.

But Lisa Mainiero, associate professor of management at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., realized it was time for some academic research into this phenomenon.

“Office romances are so common these days that everyone wants to talk about them,” says Mainiero, who has a doctorate in organizational behavior and whose past research has centered on women in management.

She decided to write a book after talking with many women who told her they knew all about career problems facing women in the workplace.

Information Goals

But what they really wanted to know was “what to do about that really attractive guy in the department, and whether they should get involved with him or not.”

Her recently released book, “Office Romance: Love, Power and Sex in the Workplace” (Rawson Associates-Macmillan, $17.95), is the result of three years of research.

Mainiero says the adage “Don’t mess around in your own back yard” is gradually becoming dated, and the office environment can be conducive to attractions that turn to romance.

There are risks to office trysts, but Mainiero says there also are some benefits and fewer drawbacks than she had thought there would be: “I expected to hear all kinds of horror stories, especially from women. But I found some really positive stories, and that surprised me.”

Productivity Up

The benefits include her finding that the motivation of employees involved actually increases. “Some people said that being attracted to someone in the workplace made them really want to get to the office, and that they would work harder and longer and try to come up with wonderfully incisive comments in meetings to impress that person,” she says.

“Office romance in some cases seems to energize workplace morale,” she adds. “Something about having love in the air makes everybody feel good. It improved morale rather than harmed it.”

In some cases, she found office romances also improved cooperation and teamwork with other departments.

The Four Stages

Mainiero says that there are four stages to the office romance that relate to productivity.

During the first stage, which is the attraction or fantasy period, people become “very motivated because they are trying to impress the other person they are attracted to,” she says.

The second stage is the dating or honeymoon period. “Often during this stage, work performance went down a little bit because they were more concerned about each other and whether they were going to be having lunch together, more so than their work.”

The third stage she calls “renewal” because of a resurgence of productivity. “Once the relationship was stabilized, they didn’t want anyone saying that their romance was harming work, so they would become productive once again, to make sure everyone knows they’re doing their job as well as anyone else.”

The fourth stage is when the couple must decide whether the relationship will be long-term, involving living together or marriage, or whether they should break it off.

Different Departments

The ideal office romance occurs between two people who work in different departments. The most troublesome romance is the one between a boss and a subordinate.

A relationship between peers is ideal, Mainiero says, “because there is no difference in authority level, and when you are separated by departments, there is a natural work boundary there. Not only does that make life easier, but in the event of a breakup, you don’t have to see that person day in and day out.”

But the boss-subordinate romance can be full of problems, and no matter which party is male or female, the effect appears to be the same, she says: “Whoever is the lower-level person can be accused of sleeping their way to the top. Because more women are in lower-level jobs in corporations, there may be more women who are the lower-level members in that kind of relationship.”

Bosses in that situation have problems “because the relationship allows for the possibility that power can be manipulated or exploited.” Upper management may be suspicious of a manager’s ability to be objective about the work of a person they are involved with, she says.

Conservative Frown

Conservative companies may look down on office romances, and people who have them in such companies could find their careers adversely affected. More liberal companies seem to have little or no concern about employee relationships, she says.

Breakups are the hardest aspect of the situation because the personal life and work life are intertwined, “and it can be devastating,” Mainiero says. The most successful breakups were when the couple discussed early in their relationship how they would handle a parting, such as who would transfer to another department or job. Co-workers also may be aware of the breakup, and “there may be a lot of pity and sympathy that people don’t really want.”