>> So what should a couple do if a new member of staff arrives in a
>> company and discovers a person with whom there is a very strong romantic attachment? The
>> attachment is mutual without coercion.
It's all fact and circumstance dependant.
In small organisation, particularly a family business, either everybody rubs along with the situation or if an employee finds it impossible they bale out. If it's really bad or they're pushed then maybe employment lawyers get involved.
Once it's a larger outfit, I guess there's a critical mass for this, then rules, HR/Finance functions and such like are in place and the rules need to cover workplace relationships. Mark's post above provides a summary of why this is necessary to avoid both real malfeasance and to ensure, so far as possible, that any suspicion is stopped too.
In the scenario you mention then I think they have to 'come out' to HR so that any provisions needed for benefit/protection of couple and others are in place.
I think pretty much any large secondary school will have couples on the staff. Sometimes staffroom romances other times they come as a package - there are only so many teaching posts in a given subject within travelling distance of the marital home. Way back when I was at senior school the Head of Art and one of the Science/Maths teachers were a married couple. She took his name but there are good professional reasons, and keeping it from pupils isn't one of them, why female professionals, not just teachers, use their maiden names professionally.
There was a suspicion that a previous head at Comp my kids went to had 'a thing going on' with a member of the SMT whom he appointed. One of the downsides of Academy status is that Heads who want to do that sort of thing are no longer under control of an LEA. Of course governors are supposed to be the back stop but a domineering head can bend them to his way.
|