Work places are serious environments & not citadels for romantic pursuits!

“I used to face problems while working with the Indian Bank as a probationary officer. Some dating couples (some unmarried & some married!) neglected their duties which irritated the customers and the other office staffs (including me) were also disturbed.”
-D. Sarangi, ex-emp, Indian Bank
“The dating couples often formed a small coterie and used to take things for a ride. This disturbed us a lot to discharge our duties. Worse, the relationship of which they used to boast so much did not even last for six months.”
-G.K. Das, SSE, Mindtree Consulting
“Though we have a very few women employees, yet dating is common here. In a profession like this any sort of dilly-dallying with the work resulting out of irresponsible behavior draws heavily on our performance and leads to serious repercussions.”
-G.C. Barik, Signal Engineer, AAI
The above statements of my friends made me think seriously about the issue of romantic relationships, love affairs and all sorts of such behaviors displayed at the workplace which in many cases lead to detrimental aftermaths not only for the organization they work but also for the co-workers. Not everyone joins a company/organization to find his/her bride/groom. Many participants have mentioned that the company should not poke its nose into the personal affairs of the employees. To put it bluntly companies pay us to work in a disciplined manner without disturbing the co-employees and not for romancing and strengthening love relationships with fellow employees and exhibiting public displays of affection inside the office premises. The whole world outside is available for such sacred pursuits, then why to use the dull, dreary and drab office ambience? Moreover do we possess any right to affect the performance of co-workers who may silently bear the on goings for the sake of friendship or camaraderie? The even more important question is can we afford to forget the goals of the organization in the light of our romantic pursuits?
A strong argument to the above logic would be that the people engaged in such pursuits perform exceedingly well which can only be a myth! Many others, for that matter, also perform excellently who had never ever dated anyone! Some participants have suggested that the couples find a conducive environment at the workplace when they are together. Slightly stretching the logic we can say that some people are homesick and may wish to have the entire family accompany them to the office to perform well. I am sure that it may sound funny to most of us but that’s how things are. Merely stating with some examples that such and such couples became star performers in a certain company as a result of aggressive dating behavior can only be a “joke of the day”. The fact remains that those people who are professional enough to segregate their personal love life/family life from their academic/professional pursuits would be the best performers.
The unseen problem:
With the emerging IT and other knowledge based industries there is a huge metamorphosis in transition as far as the work culture is concerned. Many MNC’s (as mentioned by fellow participants) are encouraging the employees and also heavily rewarding them for sustaining such relationships. But even by doing so the firms are only trying to ensure that their business does not take a backseat. They are, in fact, not interested in the love affairs but just to avoid any problems/issues (which they surely anticipate) come up with such policies. It would be erroneous on our part to think that this is a way of “performance management” which is actually a “disaster management” for them. There are myriad examples cited by many of the participants regarding such cases which landed the firms concerned into big troubles. So it is just an initiative to avoid these problems.
The culture issue:
With the advent of globalization the world is getting smaller day by day. Cross cultural work environment, cross border work assignments have become common features. Even then such issues do not augur well with all kinds of employees. Some may not be comfortable with love relationships being extensively practiced at work places. Even in academic environments like professional institutes (engineering/MBA) such cases are seen often. Many students believe that the primary goal of landing in a college is to find one’s soul mate. In the process if some learning also happens then it would be a bonus! The same behavior gets extended to work places when these people join organizations. How much can we segregate the “work culture” and “professionalism” from “love pursuits” or “personal issues” remains a big challenge.
Are “love contracts” going to work?
Many participants have mentioned that imposing “love contracts” is not an effective solution to deal with such problems because it curbs the so called “independence/freedom of the dating love souls” and also becomes a “shield against future repercussions of a potential sexual harassment case”. I completely agree with their views but for entirely different reasons. First, an office /workplace is not a synagogue dedicated to Cupid or Aphrodite that we should be so much bothered to exercise and safeguard our rights for “Romantic Freedom” here. Second, why should a company doing serious business pay a heed to what’s happening in our personal/romantic affairs and bear the brunt for no fault of their own.
The "Actual Independence" issue:
As Kanti rightly pointed out that a manager or for that matter any employee cannot be foolish enough (exception: people like Jagruti) to sign a contract without even going through it. Also companies cannot force the employees to sign contracts after contracts for every issue that pops up. Though I do not dare to prescribe a “Panacea” to resolve such complex issues encompassing delicate strands of human relationships yet I feel that there are rather broader and deeper implications of these which we need to focus on in order to arrive at any effective method to govern such behaviors at work places.