Love Contracts?

[VincenzoG91]

I'm a manager at a small company. In terms of responsibilities, I am the accountant, the HR guy, the receptionist and the shipping/receiving guy. Most of my co-workers are scientists, so I handle most of the non-scientific work. Right now, I working on the new edition of our HR manual, and a question has come up. Our current CEO wants to know if we should completely ban dating between our employees, or if we should offer love contracts. A love contract is where two dating employees agree not to blame or sue the company if their (ill-advised and lazy) dating situation doesn't work out.

Last year, we actually did have a potential problem. A married manager got into an affair with a younger woman in a different department, causing her to call off the engagement to her impending marriage. Then he got caught by his wife, and was on the verge of moving out of their house and into his own place when they managed to reconcile. I know, because I got the call from the leasing manager for the apartment that he was planning to rent. The situation got scary for the company, because the young woman's immediate manager was talking about leaving the company (for unrelated reasons), and the only other person qualified to run that department was the cheating married guy. Fortunately, the younger woman recently left our company for another job. She was developing a serious allergy to something in our lab.

So... love contracts? I would rather just ban dating between co-workers here. We only have 15 employees, so that kind of thing can be really disruptive. And I don't actually want to know that much about my co-workers, though the HR role tends to drag me into these things. Anyway, what experience do you folks have with love contracts in the workplace? Do they have them at your job? Have you ever signed one?

[vashti]

I never heard of a love contract, and I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to release the company from responsibility if an employee is having sex with his/her boss. I don't know if it would hold up in court, though. People can sue for whatever reason they choose.

One thing is for sure: banning relationships at work won't work. People who are attracted to each other WILL continue dating.

[VincenzoG91]

I keep picturing that scene in the old News Radio sitcom, where Mister James calls in Dave and Lisa to talk about their office romance. Dave and Lisa talk about it for a while, explaining how it won't be a problem for anybody because they are both responsible professionals. Mister James smiles, and says, "That's nice. Now which one of you is quitting?"

[girl68]

I think the problem with the contract would be that they're not going to sign it. Neither party is going to say wait, shouldn't we tell someone to get us a contact before we bone here today, on your desk? People are going to date no matter what policy is in place but I think that the contract would be a good idea to protect the employees as well as the company.

I've read one contract that stated dating is allowed however it shall not interfere with anything work related. It was more about how it would impact their work instead of a potential law suit.

[Gigabitch]

The idea that anyone would hold the company responsible for their relationship drama is just disgusting. This litigious country is getting out of hand.