Loveaholics @ Work

With organizations spending more and more on building inter-personal relationships within the company these days, it is rather surprising to see Intermediary Technologies asking two its employees to sign the love contract! Organizations, now-a-days, provide incentives to its employees for marrying their colleagues of the opposite sex. As a case in point, my previous employer (Cognizant) used to pay (probably they still pay!) an incentive of Rs. 30000 to each of the two individuals who got married, in contrast to just Rs 15000 in case of an employee getting married to someone who is not a part of the organization. This is a clear indicator to the fact that organizations prefer intra-company marriages.

However, there is a flip side to the entire saga. There might be many circumstances where a romantic relationship or a married relationship between two of its employees proves detrimental to the interests of the organization. A few such possible scenarios are:

• ·         Increased intimacy might be reflected in public inside the office, which might give rise to discomfiture among fellow employees.

• ·         Increased chances of sexual activities within the office premises, which has the potential to create a very bad impression about the organization.

• ·         Negative vibes in their personal relationship might cast a shadow over their performance as professionals.

• ·         Problems in their work life might affect their personal bonding, which again would lead to extreme mental pressure to both of the individuals.

• ·         Both the individuals in the relationship might come up with vacation leave request at the same time. This might jolt the project in case both of them are involved in the same project.

• ·         In case one is transferred to a different location or is sent abroad for some onsite assignment, the other one would, sooner or later, come up with a request to be relocated to that particular location. It is needless to say that the management has to make a lot of compromises to accede to such requests.

The last point that I mentioned can be perfectly illustrated by a small incident that happened with my previous employer, Cognizant. Shantanu and Sumita (name changed for confidentiality reasons) were romantically linked to each other since 5 months of joining the organization. The relationship was 2 years long when Shantanu was sent to New Jersey on an onsite assignment. Within 2 months, Sumita raised a hullabaloo with her manager and demanded that she be sent to New Jersey on an onsite assignment of a different project. The manager had a tough time explaining the operational and other problems in sending her to NJ at that stage. However, as Sumita threatened to leave the organization in case her demand was not met, the manager eventually had to bow down and she was sent to NJ on a different project, by-passing many other deserving contenders. This gave rise to sheer discontent among many employees who thought they stood a good chance. Both Shantanu and Sumita stayed there for a long time at NJ, forcing the management to extend their stay, thus ignoring the rotation policy that is normally followed by the organization in case of onsite assignments. Both of them got married and were still based in NJ when I left my organization in search of greener pastures at XIMB. Their behavior raised discomfort in the manager chambers, while the cowed behavior of the manager raised many eyebrows and gave rise to sheer disgust among those who were victimized. The management had to face the consequences as a lot of employees put in their papers in bulk, out of immense disappointment.

Under the above circumstances, there are just two alternatives in front of an organization: Either they disapprove all romantic relationships within the organization, or they ensure that the employees’ professional lives are not dictated by their personal lives, which is exactly what Intermediary Technologies is trying to do here. By making the two protagonists sign a contract, they are actually trying to ensure professional behavior in the organization.

There is another angle to this entire saga. There have been many instances where employees have been found using the company’s resources (read communication resources like telephone, internet, etc) for sustaining his or her romantic liaison outside the organization. I can candidly admit being a testimony to this practice as I myself have extensively used my organization’s communication resources with similar intentions in my mind, while I was working. Such instances are not one-off cases. There was a huge chunk of my colleagues, who used to do the same. From superfast internet to local calls to long distance calls to overseas calls, the organization’s resources are utilized to the maximum limits. Under these circumstances where a majority of its employees follow such a line, the company would do well to reduce its expense to a huge extent by promoting intra-company romantic liaison.

I personally do not agree to the theory of signing a contract, as I believe discipline can be imbibed by proper motivation, backed up by certain regulations. The employees can be judged in their performance appraisals. So rather than forcing them to behave in a particular way through a legal contract, an ideal employer would rate the employees’ based on their real performance. In this way, each employee is responsible for his or her own behavior in the organization and this negated the need for any contract.