Walk into any workplace and what’s in the air? Besides the burnt popcorn. We mean that other thing. That sweet scent of romance.
Yes dear reader, just in time for Valentine’s Day CareerBuilder tells us what you’ve been suspecting all along: your office mates are mating up. That’s if the survey is to be believed — and why not? They surveyed 7,780 people who all can’t be pranking us — then almost 4 in 10 workers have dated someone they met on the job.
Awkward, if one of them thinks it’s going places and the other one … you get the idea. Fortunately, 31 percent of those relationships lead to marriage. (Which is no guarantee things won’t get even more awkward a little down the road. But this is the season for love, so ignore our dose of ugly reality. Or read on to the part where we tell you how Challenger, Gray, & Christmas snuck in a warning about office violence.)
HR people out there, this stat’s for you: CareerBuilder says 18 percent of office dating is between boss and their report. Women were more likely to date up than men, 35 percent to 23 percent respectively.
Of the industries reported, you just had to know that hospitality by far (47 percent) has the most co-dating co-workers. Healthcare also made the top five list, which, considering how many parents hoped their offspring would marry a doctor, is no surprise. But financial services (40 percent)? And transportation and utilities (43 percent)? And IT (40 percent)? These also made the top five? Really?
Now moving on to that warning about workers pulling a Valentine’s Day Massacre from Challenger, Gray & Christmas (hereinafter CG&C). “Some companies are facing an entirely different problem: their workers have lost that loving feeling and the consequences can be dire,” reads the press release we got from the global outplacement firm.
“Often in situations where managers are aware of a problem between two or more coworkers, they merely look the other way, letting the employees work it out amongst themselves. This may work in some situations, but in others, this hands-off approach can have disastrous results,” says CGC CEO John Challenger.
The press release offers a whole bunch of ideas to increase civility and reduce animosity. Missing from the list, and very conspicuously considering Valentine’s Day started this whole thing, is the free supply of large amounts of chocolate.
