Valentine’s Day is next week. That means that there are probably lots of new workplace romances just about to burst out all over your office.

What do you do? Ever consider a “love contract”?

What Exactly Is a Love Contract?

To protect itself from liability, an employer requires romantically intertwined employees to sign an agreement stating that (1) the relationship is 100% welcome, voluntary and consensual and (2) they will fully comply with the employer’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, including immediately reporting any and all harassment, avoiding nepotism/favoritism and working in a professional manner at all times.

The “Office Effect”

Such contracts were relatively rare and obscure until an episode on TV’s The Office in which Michael Scott was asked by his love-interest boss to sign one. Despite the rather humorous complications that followed, that episode apparently spurred HR folks all over the country to consider adding love contracts to their risk-reduction arsenal.

What Do YOU Think?

It seems I get lots of questions on this topic right around this time every year. This year, I thought I’d see how YOU feel.

What’s a Love Contract? To protect itself from liability, an employer requires romantically intertwined employees to sign an agreement stating that (1) the relationship is 100% welcome, voluntary and consensual and (2) they will fully comply with the employer’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, including immediately reporting any and all harassment, avoiding nepotism/favoritism and working in a professional manner at all times.

The Vote. The people have spoken and it’s virtually a dead heat. Of the 151 voters in day one of our poll, 77 (51%) said love contracts are a good idea. 74 (49%) believe they’re a bad idea. That’s a marked difference from the same poll we conducted last year, which had a 61-39 bad/good split.

My Thoughts. My rather negative view of love contracts was captured quite nicely here in Newsweek. In short, it seems to me that love contracts are a form of over-lawyering that basically forces HR to act as the love police. Effectively and consistently enforce your anti-harassment policies and you should be just fine.

A quote from the Newsweek article gives a bit more depth:

Consensual relationship agreements are just another case of “overlawyering,” says Mark Toth, the chief legal officer for Manpower North America, an outplacement and employment services company based in Milwaukee. “It forces [employers] to become the love police, consistently enforcing who’s dating whom,” Toth says. And he’s not sure if such contracts will necessarily protect companies from litigation. A subordinate signing a love contract might claim that he or she signed under duress or that harassment began after the contract was signed.

One can easily imagine the following conversation taking place in a company that adopts a love contract policy:

HR:  Hello, Greg.

Greg:  Hello.

HR:  I heard you’re dating Marcia. Is that true?

Greg:  No, actually I’m dating Alice.

HR:  Oh, really? I thought Sam was dating Alice.

Greg:  No, he’s dating Carol now.

HR:  Hmm.  I thought Carol and Mike were married.

Greg:  Did you hear that Bobby’s dating Cindy? And that Jan’s dating Peter?

HR:  I quit. (Hands him a stack of love contracts.) Congratulations — you’re our new Head of HR.  Get everyone to sign one of these.

Don’t let that happen to you.

(In the interest of fairness, some lawyers and HR professional are quite fond of love contracts. Check out some of the comments to yesterday’s poll and read the full Newsweek article to get other perspectives.)

What do you do? Ever consider a love contract?

What’s a love contract? To protect itself from liability, an employer requires romantically intertwined employees to sign an agreement stating that (1) the relationship is 100% welcome, voluntary and consensual and (2) they will fully comply with the employer’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, including immediately reporting any and all harassment, avoiding nepotism/favoritism and working in a professional manner at all times.

Such contracts were relatively rare and obscure until an episode on TV’s The Office in which Michael Scott was asked by his love-interest boss to sign one. Despite the rather humorous complications that followed, that episode apparently spurred HR folks all over the country to consider adding love contracts to their risk-reduction arsenal.

It seems I get lots of questions on this topic right around this time every year. This year, I thought I’d see how YOU feel.

Enjoy!