The Daily Telegraph

Office affairs can be a force for good – don’t ban them

Straight-talking common sense from the front line of management

- SIR JOHN TIMPSON ASK JOHN Sir John Timpson is chairman of the high street services provider Timpson. Send him an email at askjohn@telegraph.co.uk

Q

I have recently discovered that our two bosses have entered into a relationsh­ip unbeknown to the wider company. I’m very concerned about what this means for the business – will they work together as effectivel­y? What if they break up?

I don’t want my career put at risk by a lovers’ tiff. Should I risk telling them what I know and hope to force them to come clean to HR, or do I trust they will keep their personal lives separate from work? What are the risks to the company if things do go wrong?

A

Some companies clearly consider that affairs between a senior executive and another employee are bad for the business and specifical­ly ban close relationsh­ips in the top executives’ contracts of employment.

But that doesn’t mean that lovers can’t work together in the boardroom.

Jo Malone, Stella Mccartney and Emma Bridgewate­r all developed very successful businesses by working with their husbands. But, recently, some top executive romps have led to the sack.

Steve Easterbroo­ke, president and chief executive of Mcdonald’s from 2015 to 2019, was dismissed for an affair with an employee. He was subsequent­ly found to have been involved with three different women on the payroll. His girlfriend­s were not close to the boardroom but, it was reported, he awarded one lover stock options worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I think the Mcdonald’s board made the right decision, but believe it is wrong to ban “internal affairs”. The chances of corporate damage depend on the circumstan­ces.

There was no doubt that Matt Hancock had to go after being caught on camera in a clinch in his office with Gina Coladangel­o, but his fall from grace was probably due to the timing and location of the incident. Other politician­s have survived their adventures into adultery.

In-house affairs are much more awkward when one or both of the colleagues are married, especially if the abandoned partner has friends or relations in the business. In-company relationsh­ips are more likely to be called into question if a senior manager is involved – eyebrows are raised when a junior colleague goes out with the boss.

Many years ago a Timpson area manager had an affair with our HR manager. The relationsh­ip came to light when we discovered they were submitting very similar expense claims. Their weekly schedules were almost identical. They visited shops in the same area of the country and stayed at the same hotel, claiming expenses for two rooms but only using one, including a couple of weekends away. The relationsh­ip broke up two marriages, caused consternat­ion in the company and they both lost their jobs.

Although lawyers, keen to exploit another lucrative area of HR, are happy to put relationsh­ip restrictio­ns into employment contracts, no one will cut out office romances – nor should they. Rather than worry what will go wrong and avoid any embarrassm­ent caused by a spot of flirting in the finance department or even an enthusiast­ic embrace in the boardroom, we should recognise that, for many people, an office romance can be a major force for good. By controllin­g love at work lawyers will, in an attempt to avoid embarrassi­ng moments, be closing down one of the world’s best dating agencies.

For most of my life many relationsh­ips developed from meeting a colleague. In the days before online dating, suitable matches were put together at the photocopie­r or in the canteen. From what I have seen most marriages made in the office have been very successful. I am writing this column while on holiday in India. Yesterday, I met a 23-year-old man who extolled the virtues of arranged marriages: “I love our culture,” he said, “and expect my parents will guide me to the right choice before I’m 30.”

If our colleagues get married we help them to celebrate. On top of the bottle of champagne, they get an extra week off work plus £100 and the chance of my company car becoming their wedding car for the day, driven by Martin, our personal chauffeur. If the marriage is between two Timpson colleagues, we are delighted to double the benefits.

If you go to our shop in Alfreton you will find Vic and Debbie Pritchard, who, together, have been looking after their customers for more than 25 years, a record matched by Neil and Dawn Klemp, who run our shops in Warrington and St Helens. It is a theme repeated throughout the company. We are, after all, a family business.

If our business had discourage­d dating 90 years ago, I would not be writing this column. In the 1930s, my father, son of the chairman, met a secretary in our factory office. They were married in 1936 and produced my sister and me.

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