Consensual Relationship Agreements
Introduction
A consensual relationship agreement is a contractual document signed between coworkers involved in romantic relationships. Employers use these contracts to make the relationship public. Consensual relationship agreements are used for several objectives. The contracts protect employers from litigation in case the relationship between coworkers goes sour. The contract also provides legal protection for the coworkers involved in the relationship, and third parties such as colleagues who are victims of favoritism due to romantic relationships. However, CRAs infringe on employee privacy by employers. Even though contract is signed voluntarily, the employees compromise their private life and the employer can easily take advantage of the contract at employees’ expense.
Romantic relationships in modern organizations have increased because of increased working periods. Employees spend a lot of their time at work and their out-of-work activities are limited; which leads some employees to start having love relationships with colleagues. Employers find this trend alarming because it can affect organization productivity and create hostile workplace conditions. This has led employers to create organizational policies to regulate how employees should relate at work. These policies also indicate how employers interact with employees, and how relationships at work should be handled. Policies of organizational behavior incorporate ethical principles that guide how employees should behave at work and relate with one another.
Arguments for Consensual relationship Agreements
There is need for employers to encourage their employees to sign consensual relationship agreements because it is beneficial for both employers and employees. Research studies show that about 66 percent of employees are or have ever been involved in romantic relationships at work. Signing consensual agreements would help the employer and the related couples solve the any problem if the relationship ends or goes sour. CRAs are beneficial to employers because they protect the employer or the organization from litigation. An organization cannot be sued by any of the coworkers in the romantic relationship in case a crisis ensues.
Consensual agreements also protect the individuals involved in the relationship. If an employee claims they were harassed by their partner, the accused is protected by the Consensual Relationship Agreement. In that scenario, it will be assumed that the events that occurred were mutual hence; accusing one party does not warrant a harassment claim. Consensual agreements also help protect third parties in organizations. For instance, if a worker feels that there is favoritism between the workers in a relationship, they can lodge complaints based on such a contract. Using a consensual contract, the employer can decide to shuffle the employees so that the related individuals do not have the chance to favor one another at work. Some employers prohibit supervisor-subordinate romantic relationships because most of them lead to favoritism. Even though the contract is voluntary, many employees come out to sign it because it comes in handy in case their relationships go sour. Some employers convince their employees to sign the contracts because it saves resources and time.
At my current workplace, where I work as a student coordinator, CRAs are not used to govern coworkers involved in romantic relationships. The organization uses a policy whereby it does not allow workers in romantic relationships to report for the same shift of work. For example, my friend works with his wife in the same department of student affairs. He reports for the afternoon shift while his wife reports for the morning shift. Furthermore, the organization does not allow subordinate/ supervisor relationships in the same department for fear of favoritism. My workplace requires CRAs in order to allow employees who have relationships to work freely. CRAs would ensure that in case the couple’s relationship goes sour, the employer has the contract to prove any claims null and void. CRAs would also help prevent cases of favoritism, lack of trust and honesty in the institution.
Arguments against consensual relationship policies
Even though contracts of consensual agreement protect the legal rights of employees, it is not in every case. These contracts make many employees secretive on matters that concern their romantic life at work. The agreements also lead to unnecessary intrusion into employee privacy. It is not an employer’s responsibility to get involved in private and consensual relationships of any individual in an organization. Intruding into employee privacy may make employees feel like their rights as consenting adults are not in force anymore.
Employees who are involved in relationships at work are responsible for their own actions. They would be cautious not to sign a CRA because they will feel they will lose their employer’s ability to protect their legal rights. Therefore, they keep their private life information secret. Work place romance should not be restricted in any way as some opponents claim. They claim that there should be no tolerance for consensual relationship agreements because they only lead to loss of privacy and legal rights.
At my place of work, consensual agreements would have probably caused more harm than good. Employees who would sign such contracts would have to endure closer supervision from the employer. Employers will want to supervise such workers because they want to ensure they do not break the policies of the organization. More so, married couples should not be affected by consensual relationship agreements because they already have their marriage documents to show for their relationship in case of anything such as a divorce or harassment. Even though reporting to the work place for the same shift for couples could destabilize the working environment for other employees, there should be other arrangements by employers to have such problems sorted. For instance, the couple can be transferred to different departments. This would solve scenarios of favoritism and hostile working conditions.
Ethical principles associated with consensual relationship agreements
Organizations are guided by ethical concepts on how employees should conduct themselves or relate with colleagues at work. The ethical principles align employee behavior to the organization’s objectives. Ethical decisions on issues like romantic relationships must be approached with care and dealt with strictly to uphold organizational policies. The ethical decisions are made by top managers in case an ethical issue arises. The employees involved in the ethical issue are dealt with as required by the ethical rules. Ethical rules are formulated by human resource personnel to guide workers.
Consensual relationship agreements are guided by a set of ethical principles that ensure the contract is fair to both parties. Most important of all ethical principles, a CRA must adhere to the law. Sexual harassment is illegal and unethical. Many organizations have firm rules concerning sexual harassment. Other firms even carry out annual or periodical training to educate employees about the company’s policy on the same. The consensual relationship agreements are part of sexual harassment policies in many organizations. Relationship contracts can not only be used by mutually willing employees but also employers who have relationships with their employees. The agreement is used so as to avoid misusing the right that consenting adults have freedom to do anything. The agreements provide a legal roadmap that can be used by employees or employers who have gone through cases of sexual harassment to solve the case legally. The agreement helps to stop such cases from developing into cases that could harm the reputation of the organization or the organization’s performance.
The employees’ commitment to success, reputation and morale is affected by consensual relationship agreements. When consensual agreements are not used to deal with direct reports, those in the relationship could be tempted to hide their actions. Any form of dishonesty in the organization, whether professional or personal can result in the lack of trust in relationships. If an employee realizes that their boss has a romantic relationship with a coworker there is a trust problem. The employee will no longer have trust in the ability of the boss to lead the organization and other employees to success. Employees will have little respect to their boss. Generally, the morale will be distorted. In such a case, a private relationship would have spilt over to become an organizational issue.
Even though some people suggest that romantic relationships be abolished at workplaces, it is next to impossible to achieve this idea. Therefore, the best way is to establish specific policies that would be used to address work place relationships. To make an organization productive and successful, good morale must be maintained to sustain respect and trust. There must be integrity in the manner that romantic relationships are handled in the organization. If there are no consensual relationship agreements, an employee can lose their job because of integrity purposes. For example, Boeing CEO Stone cipher got dismissed in 2005 because he had an affair with a midlevel employee. A consensual relationship would have helped Stone Cipher save his job as well as saving Boeing Co. from devastating press over the matter.
Differences that arise between coworkers in terms of perspective or personality traits have a direct impact on the organization’s productivity and performance. Personal differences such as romantic relationship fallouts result in tense and unfavorable working conditions. This affects employee morale and relationship making them less productive. Furthermore, the bad reputation arising from unethical issues like romantic relationships lead to loss of clients and general poor productivity of the organization.
Alternatives to consensual relationship agreements
There are different approaches used to address situations where employees have romantic relationships at work. However, these approaches could be favorable to the employer and be detrimental to employees or vice versa. For instance, in the healthcare industry, there is a policy of no tolerance on work place relationships. Once there is a case of romantic relationships at work, thorough investigations must be carried out. If the accused or suspected employees are found to have broken the policy, they must immediately face the stipulated disciplinary action. However, this approach results in secretiveness among employees rather than adhere to the policy. It also reduces morale. A survey released in 2005 revealed that about 44 percent of workplace romantic relationships end up in marriage. Apart from no tolerance against romantic relationships, a policy of discouraging employees from relationships without necessarily prohibiting it can work successfully.
Conclusion
There are many valid opinions for and against consensual relationship agreements. There must be policies to protect organizations and employees that are involved in conflicts of interest resulting from relationships. Businesses must use ethical principles to manage work place romantic relationships. Regardless of no tolerance policies or legal agreements or discouragement of romantic relationships, there should be policies to address romances, mostly between supervisors and subordinates. Organizations without relationship policies risk facing cases of sexual harassment and executives being involved in workplace relationships. Therefore, consensual relationship policies are necessities if workplace romantic relationships have to be controlled. Organizational behavior must always be a priority to organizations because it affects employee performance and organizational productivity.
Higher Education Weblog. (2011, May 23). Consensual Relationship Agreements. Retrieved October 29, 2012, from Higher Education Weblog: http://www.kelloggforum.org/consensual-relationship-agreements/
Selvin, M. (2007, February 13). `Love contract'? It's office policy. The LA Times. Retrieved October 29, 2012, from The LATimes: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/13/business/fi-love13
Wagner, M. (2005). Workplace Romances Can Be a Risky Business. Retrieved October 29, 2012, from Van Cott Magazine: http://www.vancott.com/news/articles/34
