Is an office romance a good investment?

Dating the boss is rarely encouraged — but does it pay off?

INTRA-WORKPLACE ROMANCES can be a powder keg at the best of times, and there is virtual consensus that dating your boss or direct subordinate is not a great idea.  But alas, the heart wants what the heart wants, and we wouldn’t have the field of human resources if people always made good or ‘correct’ decisions in the workplace.

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Could there be an economic upside to dating the boss, though? That’s a question a trio of researchers based in British Columbia, California and Finland set out to answer in a new working paper titled The Impacts of Romantic Relationships with the Boss.

“Romantic relationships in the workplace are common, but those between managers and subordinates have increasingly drawn scrutiny,” wrote researchers David Macdonald, Jerry Montonen and Emily Nix.

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But conceding these relationships are bound to happen, they wanted to know: what happens to your income when you hook up with the boss? The economists looked at a data set on couples in Finland, and found that, in purely looking at the finances, dating your boss could help your bank account — but carries some pretty big risks.

Those in relationships with their boss stand to increase their earnings by six per cent over two years but risk an average 18 per cent drop in earnings if they break up, the research found. The study also revealed that women who break up with their managers “show a stark and prolonged drop in employment,” and they are 13 per cent more likely to leave the company, often for less money, just to get out of the messy situation.

“Together,” the researchers said, “these estimates indicate that breaking up with a workplace manager is problematic, not only because subordinates are more likely to leave the workforce but also because they make less advantageous firm-to-firm moves.”

Now, we know there are more than a few human resources professionals tearing their hair out, screaming that it is not as simple as a risk-reward calculation might make it seem. And they would be right. The research also found that outside the relationship itself, relationships between subordinates and managers have a major spillover effect on the rest of the company.

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“We find a six-percentage point decline in retention of other workers in establishments where a manger enters a relationship with a subordinate,” the researchers said. And if it’s a small, tight-knit company, that effect grows, as it also does when the subordinate’s income gains are larger.

So, overall, where does the research stand on dating your boss? Still pretty firmly in the ‘bad idea’ bucket. A six per cent increase in your wages over two years isn’t really enough juice to justify the risks. But equally, the researchers concede it’s still going to happen and banning it is futile.

“Such bans come with their own costs,” they wrote. “If similar rules had existed at Microsoft or Sidley Austin Law Firm, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Barack and Michelle Obama, would have been barred from dating.” Kieran Delamont