Shorty #9 Workplace Romance Stats

Warren found some pretty interesting stats on workplace romances. 
Chat GPT tells us a workplace romance stories
Warren forgot he worked the World Series 

Transcript

Announcer 0:02

Had you actually read the email, you would know that the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit language and offensive content. These HR experts' views are not representative of their past, present, or future employers.

Warren 0:17

Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through to work day by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren. This is Feathers. And we have yet another shorty episode. But I Dawn and I on Saturday, we were walking, we went down, walked on the beach in the freezing cold in the morning, but it was still fun. And while walking, I came up with the perfect name to substitute the shorty episode, and I forgot it. I was like, I was like, that's what I'm calling. I don't know what how the topic. I've been thinking, what was I thinking? What were we talking about when it popped in my mind? And yet I have already forgotten it. So maybe, maybe inspiration will hit me at some point where I actually think to write something down or memorize something. Who knows? But man, I had a good idea. And it was really good. I tell you, my idea was the best. Like, well, this fish. I caught a fish this big. It was it was great. So, anyhow, today's topic is workplace romances. And for you loyal, loyal listeners who may remember back in February of 21, we did an episode called Don't Get Your Sex Where You Get Your Checks. That's still my favorite name ever. It's still like I still use that saying to this day. And you know what? Well, I was going to see what exactly was it, 19, was it 2020? Was it well it couldn't have been 2020? So I guess I should have remembered. It should have been, it was 2021 when we did that episode. You know, for 2021 standards, J DHR standards, it got a lot of downloads, but by 2023 standards, it's like half a day of downloads. So if you if you want to hear a pretty cool episode, go back into the archives on your podcast player. Look for February 21. Don't get your sex where you get your checks. It's a it's a it's a good episode, I uh if I say so myself. So classic. Any two. It's classic. Yes, classic. But I I didn't because it's a shorty episode, I didn't want to go too deep into stories or anything like that in the the workplace romance world, but I I did go down the rabbit hole of Googling stats related to workplace relationships. So tell me what you think of these. And this is from a CNBC article dated uh December 20th, 2022. And according to their data, three-quarters of all employees surveyed said they've had a romantic relationship in the office. Now, I think that seems awfully, awfully high, but yeah. Yeah, I I think that's high. 67% of those surveyed, once again, CNBC poll, said that they knew of a colleague who cheated on their partner with a coworker.

Feathers 3:06

So yeah, I've seen that too.

Warren 3:11

Yeah.

Feathers 3:12

Before my HR days, uh yeah, I definitely saw that.

Warren 3:16

I I've seen things along those lines. 75% said workplace romances led to favoritism. And then in that same group, 74% said it led to loss in productivity. So I can agree with both of those as well. Yep. Yep. Now, also those 75% who dated a coworker said that they tried to keep their relationship a secret from their colleagues. Now, that's so hard to do in the workplace. You start spending a little more time together, you start meeting in the coffee room, you're taking your breaks together, you're arriving to work at the same time, you're leaving at the same time. That gets pretty obvious pretty quickly. So I don't I don't know. Unless you're having an affair, I don't know why you you would necessarily hide it. So I don't know. Because they're having an affair. Yeah. Well, I actually know a story of someone who, and this was I wasn't involved, I wasn't an HR at this company or anything, but I just know the whole story for stupid reasons. But manager was started who was married to somebody else, started dating their administrative assistant. Years go by, manager gets divorced, marries the administrative assistant, and they, as far as last I heard, they are still married. And uh interesting things. And there were people that wanted to get this person fired and and and things like that. But oh wow. Interesting, interestingness. I found this web site called Zeti, I've never heard of before. They gave some stats from also December of 2022 in their poll. 43% of people responded that either they or oh, after having a a relationship at work, either they, their partner, or both quit with after the relationship. So 43%, you're talking damn close to half your if you're if 75% of your people are having relationships, and then after it's over, half of them are quit. You're you've lost a hell of a lot, 35.5%, 30, 37.5% of your people that way. So crazy, crazy. Now, here's two stats that go as always to prove that women are smarter than men. It's like, oh God, where are you going? 42% of women and 28% of men think that relationships at work are a bad idea. So I think the women have it right there. Yeah. Uh and then flipping this thing, 33% of men and 23% of women think that it's a good idea to have a relationship in the workplace. And those are called the people that need to be let go very soon. Because they're going to be the ones that call it.

Feathers 6:10

Unless you're like going into like business with somebody you already have an existing relationship with. I deal. There's no upside. Yeah. Yeah, there's not.

Warren 6:22

Bamboo HR. They have a blog where they put some interesting things. They could talk about workplace relationships. They said 22% of US married couples met at work, which is I found pretty interesting. And I have some more stats on that in a little bit from another source. And here's something from Bamboo HR. 75% of HR professionals say that love contracts, in quotes, don't work. And I think, well, the other 25% are probably on Facebook group asking, what's your love contract like? Can you send me a copy of your love contract? But yeah, 75, only 75% think they don't work. Oh no. Speaking of HR, the HR Daily Advisor wrote say stated only 5% of workplace relationships are reported to HR. I'm like, why even bother reporting it? I I don't know SLS is a policy. A policy? Yeah. You can have a you can have a relationship. You just have to here's another thing. If you do have one of these policies, you can you have to let it know. You know, you got supervisor who's married, and maybe another person who's also married, and hey, we're having a relationship. Are they going to be very quick to come and bring that information to you? I don't think so. Another website I'd never heard of before, but they had uh something stats. Brandon Gale, G A I L L E. I I have no idea. I'm gonna do this in David Letterman style because you chastised me last time for not, but it's only a top five, top five industries where there are relationships at work. Number five, healthcare. And I can see that as healthcare providers put in a boatload of hours in proximity, yeah. See that. Number four, IT. And I didn't see I that wouldn't have made IT probably would have made my list of top industries. Number three, transportation and utilities. So I have I thought the problem with the transportation was all the truck drivers going to find lounge lizards and the parking lot, what do they call them? Not lounge lizards, the trailer, the parking lot lizards or whatever they call them. I don't know. I now up to Cole and ruin that. But number two, financial services. And number one was very obvious to me. What it this is why we thought, without even reading the article, what do you think it is? Hospitality. Absolutely. It's hospitality.

Feathers 8:57

Ding ding ding gold star for every restaurant I worked in, every restaurant. That was the drama. The drama was always over the well, we won't call them relationships. We'll call them relationships.

Warren 9:09

Who's hooking up with who?

Feathers 9:11

Yeah.

Warren 9:13

Uh-huh.

Feathers 9:13

It was definitely not relationships happen.

Warren 9:17

Inc. magazine. Now this one's a little bit older. It's from July 25th, 2019. Another David Letterman countdown for you. Top five places where people met their spouse. Number five, online. Number four, at college. Number three, they were already friends. Number two, through a friend. And number one, at work. And I that blew my mind. I don't know. Most of the people that I know married folks I know, very few have m met them at work or at least admitted to it. I don't know. I can I can think of three or four, but not a lot. Goes back to hospitality. They're all in hospitality.

Feathers 9:58

They're they're pollish-centered very I can probably I can probably name four or five my own head of like I know that worked in restaurants together at some point in time. So then then what does it constitute? Is it like they worked together, they had a friendship thing? Like, yeah, it's it's kind of arbitrary.

Warren 10:15

Yeah, it just says how they met for their spouse. And then my final stats for the episode is comes from, and I did not click this at work, thank goodness. Eden's Fantasies website, they said that 14% of people surveyed said they actually had sex at work. And I was like, oh. And of those people, 19% said they got caught having sex at work. Oh so that maybe it's just one of those uh, you know, penthouse forms type discussions where people all talking a bunch of crap, but not actually happen. And then their final stat is 34% of employees who relationships involved another co-worker, that other person was married or engaged. So those are my stats that I found I found pretty interesting about workplace relationships. But really, going back to what we were talking about earlier, policies. There, I think you should absolutely have a policy for bidding a hierarchical relationship in a really having a relationship hierarchical-wise. So manager subordinate, no way that's gonna happen. But there's also some places that you you don't want to have the you don't want to cross the lines, like in Ghostbusters. Don't cross the the lines. And was thinking was procurement and maybe accounts payable. You know, you there should be there there's a that that popped in my mind for no apparent reason and a couple other reasons, places where you you may not want them to have a relationship at at all. So if that's a you can make a policy on that, but I think just a across the board no dating policy, but they're gonna try to keep it secret, it's not gonna work. Those who's sleeping with who at work are some of the least kept secrets at work, because once one other person knows, the whole office knows and you can forget about it.

Feathers 12:17

It's over. Oh I wonder how that drama has changed, though, because of the big C.

Warren 12:24

Yeah, I was thinking the same way because people, hey, you want to work remotely? You know, here I'm online at the Zoom meeting in this frame, you're on the Zoom range this meeting, but we're right beside each other and nobody uh knows the difference. Neither of us are wearing pants. Yeah, no, so we can play in footsies right now. No, I yeah.

Feathers 12:44

Why are you smiling so big on camera?

Warren 12:49

Oh yeah, I I can yeah.

Feathers 12:52

What's the what's what's the moral of the story? What's the moral of the story?

Warren 12:57

Don't get your sex where you get your check.

Feathers 12:59

Amen. Amen, brother. I'll stand by that and twice on Sundays. Like, yeah.

Warren 13:07

Like, go get a hobby. But besides policies, there are other times when maybe HR needs to get involved. And I I was thinking of a situation where like an angry ex or current spouse shows up at work that hey, and you know, what do you do there? Hey, this is y'all's, you know, shit show. Take it out, huh? Get out of here. We, you know, you want to, you know, get a divorce, do it on your own time.

Feathers 13:36

Like, you gotta wonder, you gotta think about like I'm thinking about this logically for a second. Like an organization like the big A that ships you everything to not name names of a company, they have how many thousands of people working in their warehouses? Like, it's the it's the equivalent now of the hospitality world. So, how many of those love triangle pluses are happening? Like, is that what an HR professional in those warehouses are spending most of their time? I mean, I worked in a warehouse and I had to break up a physical fight, two guys over a girl.

Warren 14:12

Yeah. And see, I'm not gonna break up a fight. I'll just pick up the pieces at the end. Stop. Hey, you guys stop, stop. We have no violence in the workplace policy. Yeah. Let you fight it out, and then once you're beating yourself up to all the, okay, now let's fix this up. So before I ended, I wanted to I I I've been playing a lot with ChatGPT, and I asked it to tell me an awful workplace romance story. And it came up with this, and it's it's not awful, but I thought it was interesting that the AI came up with this. So read this real quick. Once upon a time, there was a workplace romance between co two coworkers named Jack and Jill. They both worked at a fast-paced tech company and met while working on a project together. They hit it off right away and soon started dating. At first, everything was great. They were both happy, and the rest of their co-workers were supportive of their relationship. However, as time went on, things started to get complicated. Jack and Jill's relationship began to interfere with their work as they couldn't stop thinking about each other and were often distracted. Eventually, their boss noticed their work had been suffering and called them into a meeting. The boss expressed his concerns about their relationship and its impact on the company. Jack and Jill realized that their relationship was causing more harm than good and decided to end things. Unfortunately, the breakup was messy and the tension led to the two former lovebirds. The messy end led to tension between the two former lovebirds. They were unable to continue working together without getting into arguments, and eventually, one of them had to resign. The story of Jack and Jill serves as a cautionary tale about the potential pitfalls of workplace romances. Although they may seem like a good idea at first, they can also lead to complications and even cause problems in the workplace. It's important to consider the potential consequences before starting a workplace romance. So I just found it fascinating that AI was able to come up with a realistic story about it, but I wanted something more salacious. I wanted something crazier. And so maybe next year I'll put the call out again for if I can think ahead of time in January to have people send us their workplace romance, horror stories, things gone wrong, and see what we can make happen.

Feathers 16:27

So I just like how the AI started. I like how the AI started with Once Upon a Time. It'll be a fairy tale. Once upon a time.

Warren 16:36

I think I've said tell me a story. I think uh used tell me a story, so maybe that's beered with it, but or influenced it of some way. But yeah, I'm having some fun playing with chat GBT. I I had it okay, I've I've already said in a past life I was a baseball umpire. So I I asked, tell me about Warren Workman, the baseball umpire. It says Warren Workman is a retired Major League Baseball umpire. He began his career in the American League in 1977. He worked for the league for 16 seasons until his retirement in 1993. He umpired the ALCS in 81 and 83, and also the World Series in 83. He worked two National League, he worked in the National League for two years, 94 and 95, before retiring. He's known for his consistent professional approach to umpiring and his ability to quickly and accurately make calls on the field. So that I thought it was funny how bad ChatGBT can get things. I was wasting some time playing with it and got it all there. So, anyways, that's all I had for tonight. We already gave our best practice. Don't get your sex where you get your checks. Check out our links on our link tree page or in the show notes, and support us at one of the four ways, leave us a review, send us a story, support us on Patreon, or tell a friend. So that's all I got today. So as always, I'm Warren. And this is Feathers. And we're helping you survive HR one what the fuck moment at a time.