Employee dating policy is a policy that restricts and regulates the aspects of romance among workers or with their loved ones within the work premises during the working hours. The plan usually aims at ensuring professionalism among the workers to promote quality and excellent work output while at work. However, the law may not prevent workers from developing a friendship or love but instead ensures that both the management and the subordinate staff maintain professionalism while at work. This paper, therefore, aims at elaborating on how the dating policy is usually enacted and implemented in companies and organizations for effective operations of the workers while at work
Literature Review of the Dating Policy
According to Downing (2016), the policy entails that whenever the workers are at work, they are expected to behave or conduct themselves in a manner that is acceptable by an organization so that they cannot affect others or the productivity of the company/organization. When professionalism is maintained among workers, then the quality of the output will be high since the workers will enact maximum concentration and effort. Organizations from the ancient times have always articulated that the primary objective for all the workers is ensuring that the goals and objectives of the firm are always met and therefore, the issues of romance and dating are still viewed as distractions from the quality performance.
Some companies have been known to be very strict with the policy in that nobody is strictly allowed to date or romance while in the workplace. These are those companies that are focused on their output and prefer uniformity among the workers while at work. For instance, during the breaks at work like the lunch break when workers may be having personal conversations and exchanges, they are still expected to be professional so that they can avoid compromising or making other workers uncomfortable with their discussions.
Other researchers view the aspect of the dating policy as a forbidden issue in the workplace among the workers and more so between a worker and a manager or supervisor. It is believed that when workers and the management engage in romance affairs, this may negatively impact on how the manager or supervisor may treat that work as compared to other workers and therefore, workplace research outcomes do not acknowledge this kind of relationship.
According to the Verndale University’s research on the dating policy, they were able to entail that in any institution, the workers are always expected to develop a family-workplace environment in which the workers can work in harmony and correlation while mitigating the aspect of romance and dating (Kim, 2014). They also recorded that organizations should have procedures concerning the visiting while at work and even on how being their family relationships and issues to the workplace.
Companies have also been noted to have the dating policies that are different from other companies but which do not contradict with a country’s national rights of employees act and policies. Therefore, employees are expected to adhere to such systems and respect them at all times (Young, Davis, et al., 2015). Human resource manager at times entails that all they aim while in the workplace is input and productivity of the workers towards the operations of the firm. They will thus strive to ensure that any aspects of distract or distress like romance and dating should be prohibited completely to enhance the full concentration of the workers while working.
Recommendations
All firms should always encourage their employees to embrace professional relationships while at work as long as these relationships do not pose a negative impact on the activities of their work and other workers while at work (Downing, 2016). The bonds should also not affect the performance of the organization negatively. However, in case some workers may develop close and intimate relationships, then it is advisable that they keep in mind their professional responsibilities while at work and always ensure that their relationship does not yield aspects of bias, favoritism work ethics or even bring about conflict of interest while they are at work. In situations where such workers realize that their relationship is raising an unwanted doubt in the workplace, then it is advisable for them to seek help or guidance and counseling from their leader or someone relevant. This will, therefore, ensure that they always professionally conduct themselves and help promote the attainment of the goals and objectives of the organization.
Sexual or romantic relationships that may arise between workers where one is a supervisor or leader in a firm are not usually encouraged. It is, therefore, advisable that the leader or supervisor should disclose the relationship to the office above him/her and also the other worker should disclose the connection to the other fellow workers and the administrator in the workplace (Kim, 2014). By doing this, it will help them to maintain professionalism while they are both at the workplace during working hours.
It is also advisable that if a supervisor or the next level administrator deems a particular relationship to be inappropriate, then after consultation with the human resource consultant and the relevant authority in the organization, a practical action should be taken (Young, Davis et al., 2015). It is up to the responsibility of the management to always ensure that its workers are not affected by a particular relationship that may be existing among its members for that may adversely impact the attainment of goals and objectives of the organization.
Analysis of the Policy
The Employee dating policy is aimed at ensuring total professionalism among workers in the workplace at all times. Workers should always be aware of the plan so that they may not compromise the operations and environment in the place of work. It, therefore, implies that any form of relationships that may be in existence among workers be it horizontal or vertical, they should be professional and all the workers should always maintain their boundaries (Young, Davis, et al., 2015). The policy also helps minimize unnecessary commotions that may arise in the place of work as a result of conflicts or biases due to romantic and dating issues. However, companies should not be too strict on their employees from mingling and developing meaningful relationships for human beings are social beings.
Conclusion
The dating policy upon which workers should adhere to has been noted to ensure that workers adhere to professionalism while at work so that the goals and objectives of the firm can be attained as projected. In many institutions, the policy does not conflict with the human rights act for workers but instead ensures that workers work as per the required goals of the firm. Hence, we can entail that the primary objective of the employee dating policy is to maintain professionalism and the necessary code of conducts while in the workplace.
References
Downing, J. (2016). Workplace Romance, Organizational Policy, and Employee Rights: A Qualitative Case Study(Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University).
Kim, H. K. (2014). Work-life balance and employees’ performance: The mediating role of affective commitment. Global Business and Management Research, 6(1), 37.
Young, W., Davis, M., McNeill, I. M., Malhotra, B., Russell, S., Unsworth, K., & Clegg, C. W. (2015). Changing behavior: successful environmental programmes in the workplace. Business Strategy and the Environment, 24(8), 689-703.
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