WHEN LOVE ENDS UP IN THE SACK

IN the Nineties the office affair as furtive diversion has given way to a more serious sport: finding a partner in the workplace. Britain has the longest working week in Europe (43.9 hours) so perhaps it's inevitable that we feel the need to have it all in the office. Yet what works as a secret liaison can be less successful when you have to come out in the open.

Matthew and Sarah (not their real names) got together while working at the BBC. "Immediately it become known, I was called in by my series editor and told that, while I was in love with someone I worked with, I couldn't do the programme justice," says Matthew. "He didn't push it, though, and while I wouldn't say that I gave any less, it was difficult. If we had a professional disagreement, it became personal. And we had to be careful not to alienate the rest of the team."

"Going public is more problematical than those involved imagine," says Judi James, author of Sex At Work: A Survival Guide (The Industrial Society, GBP 8.99).

"You become a spectator sport: people watch you to see if you row. They worry about pillow talk and taking sides. It creates more pressure than you'd think.

Also, if you've kept things quiet for a long time, people may resent it.

You might be seen as duplicitous and that dents the trust needed for teamwork. Also the balance at work is maintained by people as single units and when one becomes two, colleagues are threatened by that strength.

"A lot of bosses aren't happy about it either. There's a perception that when you're in love, your brain turns to mush.

There's also the potential for favouritism and/or hostility if you break up."

The truth is that current managerial practice can be woefully inadequate when it comes to handling such situations.

"Few managers in Britain are able to deal with late timekeeping, let alone sexuality," says Jean Civil, author of Sexuality at Work (Batsford, GBP 25).

"But you can no longer divorce emotional life from work, and companies now have to take this on board."

Professor Cary Cooper, organisational psychologist at Manchester University of Science and Technology, agrees.

"Today's employees have no social lives and employers have to get to grips with knock-on effects. To get out of the recession, organisations have had to downsize and dump on less and less staff. Jobs are insecure and you need to be seen in the office as much as possible. Of course, it's healthier to have a life outside work, but it's not practical; relationships in the office will soon be so common that companies will have to recognise them as normal behaviour and just let people get on with it."

Or face the legal consequences, it seems. Olivia Wrenhurst received an out-of-court settlement when she was sacked by the publishing company she worked for, after announcing her relationship with one of its directors.

"They asked my fiance to get me to leave or give me the sack. A month later we were both sacked. I don't know why they were so against us; maybe because I was in a fairly lowly position and he wasn't."

Solicitor Ian Bird says that an idea coming in from America is for both parties to sign agreements saying that they cannot claim against their employer should he/she react unfavourably to their relationship. "But I don't see that taking off here, it's far too Big Brotherish for the British. The most sensible thing is for companies to look at each case individually. After all, they want to keep good people; we have two partners married to each other here and it's fine."

COMPANY POLICIES

McDonald's: "We give staff a handbook as a guide and it says that we have no objections to crew employees dating one another as long as it does not interfere with their restaurant operations."

BBC: "In principle no member of staff should be in authority over someone in their family or with whom they're having a relationship. It's fine if they're at the same level.

That said, we're flexible."

NatWest: "Ten years ago we did have a strict policy across the group that one of them had to move. Nowadays we rely on managers' common sense to judge each situation.

Maybe one of them will have to move, but we leave it up to the line manager."

Virgin Atlantic: "We have no policy on this."

The Army: "To say we have a code of conduct is too formal but there is certain behaviour that might lead to disciplinary action. For example, a lieutenant dating a female private is irresponsible. Although each case is different, we draw to people's attention that here it is a case of duty/service before self, although that is an increasingly old-fashioned view in today's society."

Merrill Lynch: "We don't comment on things like that ..."

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