Love Contract: A Myopic View

Many people have stated that the “Love contract” is a way in which organizations protect themselves from legal hassles. I believe that the scope of Love contracts is very myopic. At the most these contracts can be stated in a single line as a “Consensual Relationship Agreement”. However, a consensual relationship and signing the contract does not guarantee protection against sexual harassment. I would like to invite the comments of my friends on this issue and others stated below in the post.

How many times do we walk out of a meeting after being blasted by a frustrated boss and say, “He must have had a fight with his wife today”? It is true that one’s personal life has the tendency to affect one’s behavior at work. Should the boss then sign a “Marriage contract” that states that his altercations at home with his wife should not affect his efficiency at work? Employees must be groomed to handle their personal lives in a way that it does not interfere with their work. No contract can ensure this. It should be a part of the culture of the organization.

Another issue with trying to implement the “Love contract” is that most people keep their relationships under wraps. How does a company react to extra marital affairs or even same sex couples, as these are the relations that are the most likely to be kept under wraps and probably the most likely to have a disastrous implications for the company. So is the “Love contract” only for those who are open about their relationship? If the company is trying to play the moral police by using these contracts to prohibit PDA, then should married couples also come under the prevue of these contracts?

Here is a situation I faced while working with Infosys. There were two really good friends in my team, both high performers. It was difficult differentiating who was better. However, one of them got promoted before the other which led to some misunderstanding between them. Following this, the performance of the friend who hadn’t got promoted dipped drastically. Would a “Friendship contract” ensure that both of these friends continued to be efficient even after their friendship went bad?

The contract put forth by the GM HR at Intermediaries Technologies Ltd, emphasized a lot on loyalty towards work and efficiency at work. However, from the examples stated above it can be understood that the relationship between behavior at work and personal life can be much wider in scope as compared to that covered by love contracts and efficiency and loyalty cannot be ensured just by its inclusion in a contract.
Informal relations are a part and parcel of the work environment. I believe, it is the responsibility of the manager to recognize such linkages and exploit the best out of the employees rather than shackle them with legal contracts. I would like to share two more stories I witnessed while at Infosys.

Manager 1, was unhappy with the budding friendship of Sanat and Shweta. Shweta was transferred to a new project. Manager believed this would ensure Sanat keeps up his good performance. However, his performance dipped and loyalty towards the project diminished. Most of Sanat’s time was spent in trying to get more time with Shweta.

Manager 2, identified the closeness between Vijay and Apoorva, both high performers. He had an informal chat with them to ensure that work was still the priority. Vijay and Apoorva worked in the same team and their performance improved as both were mature enough to understand where the priority was. Vijay, in his appraisal meeting made a passing mention that the presence of Apoorva motivated him to perform better.

As a manager it is important to inculcate and propagate a culture that treats these relationships maturely. Employees must be trained to handle personal problems so that such issues do not interfere with their profession. It would be difficult to map all employee behaviors into legal contracts.