Hot desking

Gird yourselves — in our woke world the rules of the office Christmas party have changed. From

TIS almost the season of the office Christmas do. A time when bosses loosen their purse strings and tongues and maybe, just maybe, your eyes will meet those of your office crush over the canapés. A flirt on a sticky dance floor; a snog in the stairwell; an awkward, bottom-on-the-stapler romp on your boss’s desk — seeds sometimes sprout in the most inauspicious circumstances.

Since we all spend a depressinglylarge portion of our waking hours in the workplace, it is inevitable that so many love affairs ignite there. But office relationships can be fraught. This par- ticularly applies where there is a power imbalance between the two parties — boss and intern, perhaps — but all romantic entanglements blur the line between the private and the professional.

Workplace behaviour has never been so scrutinised. However, in the wake of the outpouring of stories about sexual harassment and assault that followed the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, there was a dangerous conflation of consensual behaviour with the non-consensual. Some of the workplace relationships mentioned in Westminster’s “dirty dossier” of MPs, for example, were between two willing participants. This was then followed by a slew of articles claiming the uproar about sexual harassment would herald the death of flirting. That is, of course, hokum. There is a clear line — behaviour is either consensual and mutual, or it isn’t. But even consensual relationships can prove a headache for employers and HR. Take the staff at a well-known investment bank who had sex in the disabled loo at the office Christmas party last year — CCTV evidence ended up getting them fired.

BAR SEX on site, what do most workplaces allow? “Many companies used to have policies dictating that you had to tell HR if you were in a relationship with a colleague,” says Claire Gilbert, an employment lawyer specialising in discrimination cases. “That’s massively fallen out of favour. No one thinks it is an employer’s business to know now — it is regarded as too prurient. Besides, would you have to say ‘We were together last week but not now’?”

In the late 1990s, a department head in a publishing company told his boss that he had started a relationship with the desk PA. “Well,” said the boss. “then you will have to sack her.” He did, although somehow they still ended up getting married. Employment lawyers say the sacking is unlikely to happ e n n ow. O r g a n i s a t i o n s a l mo s t universally recognise that they have no right ruling on who dates whom. What they should care about are non-consensual relations: unwanted advances; unsolicited sexual comments; groping and promises of promotions or pay rises in return for sex.

Weinstein et al has led many organisations to scrutinise how they have handled or would handle such complaints. Some, such as the Royal Court Theatre, have brought in policies. Its artistic director Vicky Featherstone released an industry code of behaviour earlier this month to prevent sexual harassment; it called on staff to “take responsibility for the power” they have and call out abuses “straight away, even if it is awkward to do so”.

“What all companies should be doing now is making sure their house is in order,” says Gilbert. “That means having a clear reporting line around complaints — routes to complain that don’t go through a line manager because they are often the problem.”

With consensual relationships, if employers are aware of them, it is good practice for them to speak to the two individuals involved and remind them this is playing out in a work setting.