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Susan White (00:02)
I think most people hide it very, very well. Probably the reality is, it is that many. I just think we in HR only hear about the ones that go awry.

Susan White (00:16)
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting, an HR consulting practice. Joining me is my co-host and dear friend JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, a large-scale HR firm that I’m part of as an executive collaborator.

Today, love is in the air. As HR consultants, it’s not unusual have clients ask us what to do when a workplace romance surfaces, particularly when others in the workplace are uncomfortable with the perceived or real intimacy between two colleagues or between boss and subordinate, or between someone who is in a perceived higher role or a more influential role and a more regular staff member. Every situation is different and causes pause. So how big is this issue?

Interestingly, when this podcast was being developed, there was a huge scandal going on with the organization called Astronomer, and it was at a Coldplay concert. So some of you, when you’re listening to this, you may remember it, that they were doing the kiss cam that goes all around the crowd. And sure enough, they landed on a CEO and the chief people officer, both who were married to other people, kind of embracing one another. Just ironically. Love does happen in the workplace, so I’m so glad we’re talking about it today, JoDee.

JoDee Curtis (01:19)
Right, right. I do think it’s funny that you actually had this idea for the podcast before that issue happened though. It just was good.

Susan White (01:50)
Yes, I’m telling you, same wavelength of what’s going on in the world.

So Resume Genius surveyed over 1,000 US employees in their workplace romance survey that was completed in November 2024. And JoDee, let’s share some of their findings. Why don’t you start us out?

JoDee Curtis (02:10)
So their research said 39% of workers have dated a coworker and 36% have had a physical relationship with a coworker sometime in their working lives. I have to tell you that blew me away. I was surprised. mean, I would have, I guess, I don’t know, if I had guessed I maybe would have said 20%, but I…

Susan, you have worked for much larger organizations that I have, so I’m curious if you were surprised.

Susan White (02:48)
I was surprised. Now, I have gotten embroiled in a variety of situations where there was romance in the workplace, some of it appropriate, some of it not. But I have to tell you, I think most people hide it very, very well. The fact that — probably the reality is, it is that many. I just think we in HR only hear about the ones that go awry.

JoDee Curtis (02:56)
That’s right. I was thinking that too. Like, we’re the last ones to know.

Susan White (03:15)
Nobody wants to tell HR. I get it.

Well, here’s the second finding that Resume Genius found. 11% of Gen Z workers — now remember Gen Z are people that were born starting in 1997 I think till about 2012, so they’re between 18 years old and 28 years old as of this podcast recording. 11% of those Gen Zers say they have dated their manager.

Gosh, I know, what’s going on here, right?

That’s, and for all of our listeners who are business leaders or HR professionals, we know the sticky wicket is when a boss is dating a subordinate or vice versa.

JoDee Curtis (03:58)
Right, right, right, Okay, here’s another one. 43% of women say they have experienced unwanted advances from coworkers compared to 28% of men. And, you know, this is just really inappropriate, of course. And when we talk about finding love at work, it is critical that people are sensitive at not making others uncomfortable. It’s awkward, difficult when you don’t know if the person you are attracted to is open to your wanting to get to know them on a deeper level. So, yeah.

Susan White (04:40)
Yeah, this, this statistic does not surprise me that 43% of women, you know, feel that they’ve experienced unwanted — I think that people try. I mean, they’re going to, they’re going to initiate it. I’m hoping that in most of those instances, the fella or the other woman, whoever, took that first no and let it be. Right? I’m hoping. I’m… The next finding was 72% — This goes back to your, your and my fear about HR doesn’t really know.

JoDee Curtis (04:50)
Yeah.

Susan White (05:09)
72% of workplace romances are kept hidden from HR or from management. We’re not at all — So we’re in the dark about three fourths of the time, right?

JoDee Curtis (05:14)
That doesn’t surprise me.

Okay, how about 57% of respondents say workplace romances make work more exciting, but 28% admit they cause distractions. Yeah.

Susan White (05:38)
I get that.

38% of workers worry about the awkward fallout if and when the romantic relationship ends.

I think this is a valid worry. As an HR person, I have seen where individuals who were in consensual relationships, absolutely, with somebody at work, that it goes sour at least on one of the people’s parts, and then you think about the time and the energy that is spent when there is somebody feeling like the other person has moved on without them. It can professionally hurt both parties. It can cause rumors to spread when people see that fallout. Sometimes you have the party that didn’t want the breakup try to exact revenge or quit because they can no longer stand being near that person anymore. It can be very high risk for the individuals involved and also the organization. They can lose real talent when relationships go sour.

JoDee Curtis (06:35)
Right, right, right.

Susan White (06:36)
So on April 30th, 2024, there was a Forbes article that cited a survey that they had conducted where they said that 43% of workplace romances led to marriage. Okay, that did surprise me, 43%. Two factors contributing to colleagues marrying each other are, they call it “comfortability” with each other. I think because you spend so much time together at work, sometimes get very comfortable.

JoDee Curtis (06:50)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Susan White (07:05)
And then secondly, the reason that they end up in marriage so often is that most people that are involved in a workplace romance are also carrying workloads. They have very limited time outside of work to meet other romantic interests. It becomes kind of not only comfortableness, but convenience.

JoDee Curtis (07:19)
Right. Right. It is a logical place to meet people, right? So, right, right.

Susan White (07:26)
You spend so much of your life there, right? So do we as HR and business leaders want to get in the middle of people finding love at work? I think we may, unfortunately.

Due to the risks of having a free for all approach to romance at work, ThomsonReuters.com noted several factors in a February 13th, 2024 article that we will link to today’s episode about the kinds of risks that finding love at work can invite. Let’s go through each one of these. And I think that they make sense. JoDee, why don’t you start us out?

JoDee Curtis (08:00)
Yeah. Well, the first one, of course, the sexual harassment claims. I mean, based on that statistic earlier, at least on the women, where 43% of women have had an unwanted advance. Certainly, employees may claim they were harmed after ending a relationship or rebuffing unwanted advances from — advances from a supervisory suitor, or others may feel a potential hostile work environment is created by even a consensual relationship that includes public displays of affection.

Susan White (08:36)
Yeah, it can make other employees witnessing it very uncomfortable. So we have to, we’ve got to listen. We’ve got to keep our antennas up. The second reason that Thomson Reuters cited was retaliation. And what they mean here, it’s usually for somebody reporting unwelcome romantic advances, either, you know, toward them or toward others. People are — fear that they’re going to end up having consequences for them having come forward or blown the whistle.

JoDee Curtis (08:40)
Right. Right.

Another factor is favoritism. Others may feel the colleague in a romantic relationship with a person in a higher role or with higher influence, of course, may receive better treatment, or they may perceive them to be getting better treatment.

Susan White (09:20)
Yeah. Exactly.

The fourth reason is workplace violence. And this could sometimes does occur when relationships sour. We don’t know what type of revenge a person might seek in that workplace.

JoDee Curtis (09:31)
Mm-hmm, yeah. And we could also add loss of productivity, right? We talked earlier about the distraction of the romance between workers, you know, maybe just talking more or zipping in and out to places, the closet or wherever. Right, right.

Susan White (09:52)
Yeah. Yeah, very true. I laugh, but it is serious. get it. Absolutely.

Risk Management Magazine posted an article, “How to Develop Policies Regarding Workplace Romances.” And this was written by Jennifer Post on October 4th, 2024. Let’s share. She had three suggestions.

Number one, listeners consider having a policy with specific language prohibiting certain relationships such as relationships between supervisors and subordinates, perhaps between anyone who works in human resources or in the labor law area or even executive management. JoDee, I have found that when there is romance happening with somebody at the top level of the organization or in HR or in legal, everyone perceives that that individual’s not going to be, that that individual is gonna get favored treatment, as we talked about favoritism, that there’s some risk of confidentiality if you’re sleeping with the boss or sleeping with HR. So I think that it’s worth pausing and thinking about, are there areas in our organization we wanna carve out and we say, listen, no romance here. I wouldn’t do it for every job, but just some select high risk jobs.

JoDee Curtis (11:14)
Yeah. Number two is consider having a “love contract” signed by both individuals, acknowledging the relationship is consensual and that they will remain professional. I know a lot of people, even myself, it sort of seems like that’s a silly thing to do, but it is at least kind of documenting it and getting their agreement on it so if it does go sour later, you’ve got the documentation.

Susan White (11:54)
Yeah, I have seen companies do this and they do it for their own protection, right? So that there’s not hopefully future liability. But I also think it does kind of put both people on notice that professional — professionalism is expected. We’re delighted if you found somebody you love or that you are involved with at the moment. But understand, we’ve got expectations of you. So I personally have never worked on a love contract with anyone, but I have heard about people that companies that are doing it and using it effectively.

All right, so the third and final recommendation that Jennifer Post suggests is consider having a policy that requires employees to disclose any romantic relationship, regardless of the level of the participants, so that you at least have to come forward. You can’t keep it in the dark. I think that’s not a bad idea. I mean, especially we in HR, we only know about so many of them, but you must disclose if the relationship has become one that’s intimate or romantic so that there’s no hidden stuff happening. I don’t know how successful you’ll be, but hopefully it’s worth putting it on the table.

So JoDee, I thought it would be fun for our listeners to hear from people who have had real-life work love stories, or perhaps they’re currently involved in a real-life work story. So I have been, I’m gonna say for weeks, talking to people, people that I know that met each other through work that are together today, people who I know who had, like, the romance of their life with somebody at work.

I have asked person after person after person. I can’t tell you how many couples that I asked if they’d be willing to be interviewed today. Every single one of them turned me down. They begged off a variety of reasons. And let me share with you some of the reasons I got. First of all, I had people tell me that the romance started when one of them reported to the other person. And even though it’s been some for them, some of them 15, 20 years later, they don’t work at those companies, they don’t want anybody they worked with at the time to know what happened. They don’t want them — I know they still want the respect and concern or they feel like it would violate old rules, even though they’re not subject to them. So fair enough. I respect that.

JoDee Curtis (14:02)
Wow! Interesting. Yeah.

Susan White (14:12)
The second reason I’ve heard from more than one person is that at the time they were both working as peers or in different departments, so it was no big deal. However, they kept it under the radar and they still are friends with people from where they used to work and they don’t want those people to feel like they were left out or, you know, feel less than. So, you know what? I respect that.

The next reason I heard a lot was that they’re people that are still working together and they don’t want to amplify their partnerships publicly. They’re like, yeah, I don’t think there’s, I’m not violating any policy, Susan, but I think that we just don’t want to go public with it. I say fair enough.

JoDee Curtis (14:41)
Right. Right. Right.

Susan White (14:50)
And the final reason is that one of them was willing to join in — a number of partnerships or relationships — and the other one wouldn’t. And so one felt very funny talking about — usually the guy, I’ll just say it — felt funny talking about finding love at work. So I struck out, JoDee, except for the fact that there is one couple, one partner who could not turn me down, and that was my husband. All right, listeners, I found love at work.

We’re going to talk to my husband, Bill, next. Let me introduce Bill to you. Bill is a retired Indiana University senior lecturer emeritus. He’s a docent for the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, and he’s on the board of the Carmel Clay Historical Society, and he holds his architecture license. Bill, thank you so much for reluctantly joining us today.

Bill, thank you for reluctantly discussing finding love at work. share with our listeners how old you were when you met me and where were we working and how’d the sparks be, begin?

Bill White (15:58)
Wow, how did the sparks begin? Let me see if I can capture it. So I believe I was 16. I guess you would have been 16 because we met at work. We met at a toy store called Ed Shock’s Toy and Hobby. It was a hobby shop, actually, is what it was called. And that’s where we first met. I would never have spoken to you in high school. We went to the same high school. Wouldn’t have spoken to you in high school at all. And the only reason I got to speak to you is because we worked together.

Susan White (16:30)
That’s right. And you were a year ahead of me in high school. So our paths during the day would not really have intersected with each other. But at night and weekends, definitely at the toy store. I always, I love to tell people we fell in love in the Fisher Price aisle. Now, you sometimes disagree with that story, but it was in the middle of the store where the boys could talk to the girls without anybody seeing them.

Bill White (16:49)
Okay, that’s weird. No, that is, so that was, it was just an aisle in the store. It’s a small store, relatively small store. And why you say, what’s the deal with the Fisher Price aisle? At the time, it was Christmas time, and back in those days, of course, the store was absolutely packed with people. And there was a very short aisle that had just the Fisher Price stuff, all the baby toys, and I could stand there and be out of everyone’s way. That’s what I was thinking. So I would, and you would sometimes be there as well. Yeah, it was in the middle of the store. It wasn’t a secret or anything.

JoDee Curtis (17:32)
Were there any rules there about not dating anyone, or…?

Bill White (17:42)
If there were, I was not aware. And honestly, there was a lot of dating between the employees. Yes.

So the store was kind of self-segregated. It had the crafts in the front of the store and the hobbies in the back. The hobbies were where the car models were, the trains, all that cool stuff. That’s where the guys were. And that is where the boys worked, all the guys, and then all the women and all the girls, they worked the front with the crafts and the front door and everything, and that was how our manager Ruth, she just, that’s how we did it, that’s how it was done and we didn’t think twice about it and yeah and there was dating happening there with my co-workers and everyone so it was not…

But we didn’t have, I was not aware of any policy. It never got out of hand such that there had to be policies as far as I was aware.

JoDee Curtis (18:37)
Right, right.

Susan White (18:38)
Yeah, no, HR and business leaders would never have known about it as we now know. People would have kept it from them if we could have. And the toys were in the middle of the store. that’s why.

Bill White (18:44)
The, the crafts were at — the crafts were at the front, the toys were in the middle, and then the hobbies were in the back. Yeah.

Susan White (18:54)
Yeah.

JoDee Curtis (18:55)
Yeah.

Susan White (18:55)
That’s right. Well, let’s, let’s fast forward, Bill. You and I got married, and we ended up having two kids, and you ended up being an architect, and I ended up working at a bank. Share with our listeners how we ended up working together again? So we had married romance happening in the workplace.

JoDee Curtis (19:12)
Yeah.

Bill White (19:12)
Yeah, so we got back together, so to speak. Yeah, so as an architect, I would work, I would do bank remodels and/or new banks for, it probably was Bank One at the time. And I was hired by Bank One. They said, hey, why don’t you just work for us? And I said, and I…thought that would sound like a good deal. Architects have long hours and so forth, and I thought the benefits and the experience, life, quality of life would be improved if I started working at Bank One, which eventually rolled into JP Morgan Chase. So that’s how I started working there. Yeah, so we are one of — what was Bank One’s expression to…? — one of 10,000 people who cared, or something like that. And we are one of the 10,000.

And so I was in real estate and Susan was in HR as she always was. And so our paths really would never cross even in that, you know, we were in a multi-floor building. And so our paths generally would never cross anyway. It was, while we did work for the same company it was, we could keep, stay separate.

I did not have to worry about whatever the regulations were at the bank because Susan had it covered and I was oblivious to any regulation really regarding that, but we just made — we kept it very quiet and, you know, we barely acknowledged each other when we ever were in the same room.

JoDee Curtis (20:52)
Yeah. Now did people, some people would have known you were married though, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill White (20:57)
Sure. Oh yeah.

JoDee Curtis (21:01)
I have to tell our listeners too, I’ve known Bill and Susan for a long time now, and I did not know either one of these stories about the toy store or the bank, so I am loving this story. So, yeah.

We talked earlier about some of the pitfalls and some of the reasons to have policies and what’s important. But I too have worked with many people who fell in love and were later married and had very successful careers working for the same organization. Most of them were appropriate relationships where people didn’t report, didn’t report to each other just like yours too. So I think it’s important we’re not saying it doesn’t happen or it shouldn’t happen, but be careful, be professional. Thank you both for sharing your story. It’s been a pleasure hearing it. So.

Our listener question today says, “With the current administration, there is significant concern about diversity programs in the workplace are taking a turn in the wrong direction. Even before the new administration, my employer had a that was made up of 60% women, but just 15 to 20% in C-suite positions. Fast forward to today, and the women in the workforce has dropped to the 50th percentile and zero women in the C-suite. Even within HR leadership, the top two levels are all men. It has taken so long to make progress of women in the workplace, and now it seems we are taking several steps back. What are other ways that companies can still drive diversity in this current but unstable climate?”

Susan White (22:58)
JoDee, you know, when I started in the world of work really professionally in 1980, I was clearly a beneficiary of affirmative action. Without it, I don’t believe that I would have had the career opportunities I did as a female. I entered banking in a management training program who just a few years later, there had never been a female or a minority in any of the classes. So decade after decade, it was white males that were connected to other people working in the bank. And it was a push.

JoDee Curtis (23:25)
Right.

Susan White (23:28)
In our class of 11, they felt like they were being so open by having four women and one of those women was Black. And they felt like they had just made such strides, but they were doing it under the pressure of being an affirmative action employer, right? For the next 40 plus years, I have been working in support of trying to widen opportunities of inclusion in jobs at all levels, for all differences that each of us represent.

I do feel that here we are in 2025, the political and current federal and many state governments’ aversion to the terminology of DEI, I think it’s misplaced, I think it’s misguided, and I do think it’s dangerous. My opinions here. My advice to all of us who truly believe that more diversity of people and of thought and of experiences, of gender, race, age, ability, sexual identity, et cetera, around the table at every level in our organizations really strengthens our creativity, our empathy, and our decision making. I say to everybody of like mind, we got to stay strong. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

As opportunities surface at the top two levels in our listener’s organization, I would continue to encourage that person to advocate for a variety of people on candidate slates. In candidate interview debriefs, I would ask, ask executives to reflect on any personal biases I am hearing that I feel like is swaying evaluations. And I do believe that over time, the value of women candidates, just like any other diverse candidate, is impossible to deny because we’re going to deliver performance, we’re going to deliver results. And I do, I think it’s going to take longer without the support of the government or rationale that actually drives businesses for behaviors. I think it’s gonna take longer, but I do believe in time, it’s gonna be impossible to deny performance. So that’s my two cents.

JoDee Curtis (25:32)
Yeah, I agree. No, I agree. And I think it’s, it might be interesting for our listener to see, I mean, obviously she’s concerned and will other others in the organization have those same concerns and maybe choose not to work there if the trend continues? You know, I think in today’s world and certainly the younger generations are much more open to that diversity. And even though it, you know, we might not have the government mandates or government programs to support or push them, will people choose to do the right thing, right? And choose to be inclusive. And I think time will tell, but I…

Yeah, I’d love to hear back from our listener in a few years to see is the trend continuing and are other employers, employees of that organization staying with them.

Susan White (26:27)
Thank you, I’d love that too.

JoDee, it’s time for in the news. Littler.com website posted an article by Deidra Nguyen, N-G-U-Y-E-N, and Nina Stroescu, S-T-R-O-E-S-C-U. JoDee, I’m spelling those names because I may be mispronouncing them. Plus we’ll have a link in our show notes if anybody would like to go out and take a look at this article.

Littler posted the article on June 4th, 2025 entitled, “Washington State to Require Unpaid Leave and Safety Accommodations for Victims of a Hate Crime.” So starting January 1, 2026, employers in the state of Washington will be required to provide a reasonable amount of unpaid leave and safety accommodations to staff members who are victims of a hate crime or have a family member who is a victim of a hate crime.

Now, a hate crime is defined as the commission, attempted commission, or alleged commission of assault, physical damage to or destruction of property, threats, which can be verbal, physical, written, or online, to a specific person or group of persons that place them in a reasonable fear of harm to person or property where the act is committed based on actual or perceived race; color; religion; ancestry; national origin; gender; sexual orientation; gender expression or identity; or mental, physical, or sensory disability.

So what they’re really doing is adding this, if you’ve been a victim of a hate crime, to a protected class. So unless it’s undue hardship, employers must also provide reasonable safety accommodations such as a transfer, reassignment, modified work schedule, change to work phone numbers and email addresses. So the term “reasonable,” you know, used in this requirement certainly leaves room for a lot of discretion. If you have employees working in the state of Washington, we think it makes good sense to review your current leave policies and get good counsel to make any necessary changes because you very well may have people start reporting that they’ve been victims of hate crimes.

JoDee Curtis (28:36)
Right. Right. Good to know. I had not heard that. So, good intel.

Susan White (28:58)
Well, please tune in next time and make it a JoyPowered® day.

JoDee Curtis (29:02)
If you’re SHRM certified, you can get credit for listening to this episode. get the code, to getjoypowered.com/SHRM and fill out a short evaluation. When you finish the evaluation, you’ll get the code and a link to the proof of participation certificate. The code will expire on August 25th, 2026.

Again, that’s getjoypowered.com/shrm to get the code, and it will expire on August 25th, 2026. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to the HR profession.

Susan White (29:51)
Thank you.