require supervisors to report romance?
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I am looking for oppinions on whether we should have a policy requiring supervisors involved in a superior/subordinate relationship to disclose the relationship to management (and to disclose the end of the relationship). Keep in mind that we are talking about restaurants. We know we do not want to prohibit relationships.
Personal and romantic relationships are common in restaurants. It almost seems better to have an unwritten don't ask don't tell approach. Do we want to be stuck regulating them, even if we can be held liable if they go bad?
Right now the policy does not prohibit relationships but states that we have the discretion to separate the parties to avoid any actual or perceived conflict of interest that results. We also state that we reserve the right not to intervene unless a conflict of interest is reported, investigated, and determined to be an acutal conflict of interest.
Personal and romantic relationships are common in restaurants. It almost seems better to have an unwritten don't ask don't tell approach. Do we want to be stuck regulating them, even if we can be held liable if they go bad?
Right now the policy does not prohibit relationships but states that we have the discretion to separate the parties to avoid any actual or perceived conflict of interest that results. We also state that we reserve the right not to intervene unless a conflict of interest is reported, investigated, and determined to be an acutal conflict of interest.
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I come from a restaurant background as well - it was not tolerated and supervisors would be transferred if a relationship did happen. It was frowned upon. Socialization is one thing, but fraternization is another. The fine line is often broken.
Because it is common in the restaurant business does not mean that you cannot discourage it.
I also don't want to be involved with monitoring these relationships, but you cannot stick your head in the sand. At a minimum, you need a good harassment policy, with effective training to go with it, and it must be communicated to all.
We've run into this time and time again...and personally, I have a hard time authorizing employee hours to figure out who's having lunch with whom, how frequently and where.
Requiring supervisors to report relationships won't be too effective. They're the last ones to know.
The part I am still wavering on is whether we want our policy to have a statement that requires supervisors to report subordinate/supervisor relationsips and the end of that relationship.
I hesitate to put that statement in because we do not prohibit relationships and already reserve the right to interviene if need be (and the responsibility to then monitor the relationship). The reason to have the reporting statement seems to be to be aware of supervisor/subordinate relationships, get confirmation from both parties that it is of mutual consent and leave them alone unless problems with favoratism or harassment arise. My understanding of liability is that the main reason to have this statement is to be proactive since we are responsible for the behaviors of our supervisors, especially quid pro quo sexual harassment.
Do you think the statement is unnecessary as long as we reserve the right to intervene?
Frankly, I would never want to be put in the position of asking everybody in a superior/subordinate relationship if it something they really want to do or how intimate the relationship actually is.
We discourage this type of "romance" because of the implications it has (sexual harassment, favortism, etc.). Our physicians are also required to divulge if they have any type of romantic relationship or begin such a relationship with an employee.
But, we also realize these things go on all the time and are not reported. It always helps from a legal standpoint that there is a policy in place in case something comes up.
We have had a couple of instances with romances gone bad between two employees with a pregnancy resulting from one couple (both married to other people). This was not a pleasant thing.