PROMOTING FINANCIAL WELLNESS
EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS:
THE OFFICE
ROMANCE E
very business owner and employer wants an
organisation that works well as a team; one
that has a family culture where colleagues
build great relationships. However, what happens
when a professional relationship turns into a
personal one?
Relationships in the workplace can quickly go from love to
Perkbox recently investigated the impact of office
hate. Using Perkbox’s latest research, Sonia Rach investigates relationships on emotional intelligence, with 1,050
why office romances rankle. UK managers and employees conducted in January
2017. With UK employees clocking in more hours
at the office than ever before, the workplace has
become a common environment for love to
blossom. Overall, a third of employees have had a
relationship with a colleague at some point in their
career – equating to some 8.85 million of the 26.8
million employees in the UK**–17% of these
workplace couplings have resulted in marriages or
civil partnerships.
THE TRUTH ABOUT
OFFICE ROMANCES
Although romances between colleagues do occur,
cubicle courtships ended in tears for one in seven
workers who have had to leave their jobs largely
because of a failed romance with a colleague. More
men (20%) than women (12%) resigned because of
this, while the vast majority of workers aged
between 35-54 stuck it out.
The research revealed that men appear to be more
accepting of workplace relationships than women
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OFFICE ROMANCES
with 67% believing that they are not a problem as
long as they do not interfere with work compared
to just 8% of women. Additionally, 27% of men
believe that love affairs between colleagues are no
one’s business other than the two people involved.
Katherine Dyson from Barnsley in Leeds spoke of
her office romance with her now husband and the
impact it had on her working life. “The biggest issue
I had was that it changed the way my line manager
treated me – she was close to my husband before
we were together and I think she felt a bit pushed
out, so she would sometimes make sarcastic
comments to me and comment negatively on
my work.
“I was in an entry-level role, so had been thinking of
moving on anyway, but when I started having the
problems with my manager I decided that it would
probably be a lot easier if I just looked for a
different job.”
Overall, managers appear to be quite accepting of
office romances with 62% having no problems with
such unions provided that this did not impact on an
employee’s job. In fact, older bosses aged 45 and
above were noticeably more accepting of this (51%)
than bosses aged 35 and under (45%). That said, a
quarter of workplaces confirmed that they had
policies in place which discourage romantic
relationships at work; 7% of which are reflected in
employment contracts, while 18% have an
unspoken rule against workplace romances.
**UK employment figures taken from latest ONS’s UK labour
market report
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 PROMOTING
OFFICE ROMANCES
FINANCIAL WELLNESS OFFICE ROMANCES

17%
Of office romances
45%
Of bosses think
1 in 7
Workers leave their
have resulted employees should keep jobs because of failed
in marriages personal problems office romances
to themselves

than half have proven to be

unsupportive of their employees during
times of emotional strife.”

But how do bosses feel about this? A

third of UK bosses believed it was
important for employees to inform them
if they are going through emotional
trouble, such as the breakdown of a
relationship. However, many managers
(46%) preferred that employees keep
such things to themselves – both male
bosses (48%) and older bosses aged
55-64 (54%) felt this especially, versus
43% of female bosses and bosses aged
34 and under.

Overall, only 45% of employees stated

Chieu Cao, Co-founder at Perkbox,
commented: “Today’s office is a theatre
in which many of our everyday human
dramas unfold – love, hate, friendships
and conflict are all inevitably played out
in the realms of our 9-5 job. Having the
emotional intelligence to navigate these
challenges productively is absolutely
vital in ensuring employees effectively
self-regulate their emotions in the
workplace and understand the impact it
might have on other colleagues.”
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The phenomenon of ‘emotional
intelligence’ describes an ability to
recognise and understand emotions and
their impact on behaviour. It may dictate
how effectively and respectfully a
manager treats his or her employees,
The study found that 70% of employees
believed emotional intelligence to be
very important in their job role; a greater
proportion of women (75%) valued the
trait more than men (64%). The
perceived importance of emotional
intelligence appears to increase with age
too, with 45% of 18-24 years
understanding its value against 70% of
25-43 year olds, 72% of 35-44 year
olds, and 74% of 45-54 year olds.
However, a greater proportion of
employees (81%) said it was even more
important for bosses to possess and
exercise emotional intelligence. The
most cited reasons included the belief
that it “made bosses fairer and more
empathetic” (54%); “it made employees
feel that the company cared about their
wellbeing”; and that it “improved
OUT OF WORK ROMANCES
“Today’s office
In addition to relationships in the
is a theatre workplace, Perkbox’s research also
in which looked at how employees deal with
personal relationships overall. It showed
many of our that 60% of men would feel
everyday comfortable confiding in their bosses on
human personal issues such as the break-up of
a relationship with a partner or spouse,
dramas if they felt that it would interfere with
unfold – them doing their job properly. Only half
love, hate, of women said the same.
friendships Age plays a role on an employee’s ability
to confide in their boss: nearly 50% of
and conflict those who admitted it would be difficult
Discussing the results, Cao added: “It’s
encouraging to see that men are
becoming more open with their
emotions and are confiding more in their
bosses when it comes to affairs of the
heart, as it goes against the very
stereotypical codes of behaviour
dictating how a man should emotionally
conduct themselves professionally.
“By contrast, women’s reluctance to
open up emotionally at work serves to
highlight the continuing challenges they
face in business – to rebuke the
gender-based conventional codes that
posit them ‘too emotional’ and instead
that their employer had been supportive
when they confided in them about
emotional difficulties. The North East
(31%) and Scotland (36%) had the most
supportive bosses while bosses in
London (21%) and the South West
(16%) were the least supportive of
their employees.
Explaining the impact of an insensitive
organisation, Cao concluded: “Effective
employee engagement must absolutely
include processes for managing
emotional wellness. Neglecting to do so
can have numerous implications on the
physical wellbeing of the employee and
therefore the ability to do the job at
hand, to the personal resentment
harboured at management for lack of
support and imparting good old-
fashioned human empathy.
“The sooner bosses are able to get to

and how an employee may
communicate with his or her colleagues
– particularly within stressful situations,
from managing deadline pressures to
dealing with workplace conflict and
personal trauma.
teamwork and morale” (48%).
Yet despite this, over a quarter of UK
bosses (28%) viewed emotional
intelligence as unimportant, with 44%
maintaining that, “employees should be
professional and do their job regardless
of their emotions and private lives”.
are all were aged between 35 and 54. Only
to be more poker faced and composed grips with this – the most critical of all
in the face of difficulty, lest the act of so-called ‘soft skills’ – using engagement
inevitably 22% of 55-64 year olds and a quarter of
displaying emotions or confiding in tools and through training, the more
18-34 year olds felt the same –
played out in indicating that both millennials and baby
peers harms their career prospects. It’s adept they will be at creating the kind of
also quite concerning how half of UK inspirational work environment that
the realms of boomers are more amenable to opening
employs the most successful and
bosses in our research see emotional
our 9-5 job” up emotionally to their managers
if needed. intelligence as unimportant and less productive of teams.”

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