News
Love on the job: workplace relationships
First published in The Independent, 30 October 2008.
It is no accident that New Zealand's employment legislation is based around the concept of relationships.
Employment relationships are based on foundations of trust and confidence, of reliability and honour.
In that respect, there is a real similarity with the qualities that underpin successful personal relationships. The qualities that are exhibited in a good employee are not unlike those that we would find in a good life partner.
But problems can arise when these two different relationships coincide. As a recent case shows, personal relationships in the workplace can compromise the obligations owed as part of the employment relationship.
The applicant in G v General Distributors Limited (Unreported, Employment Relations Authority, Auckland, 18 August 2008) was a duty manager at a Woolworths supermarket. He was 34 years old.
Within a few months of his employment, this manager commenced a close personal and sexual relationship with one of his store's checkout operators. The girl was 16 years old and attended a local high school.
There was a policy in place concerning the propriety of personal relationships in the workplace, described as a "conflict of interest" policy. It placed an obligation on employees to report the existence of any personal relationship which might conflict with their impartial performance of their duties.
Put simply, the intent of the policy was to ensure the objective management of employees – and to eliminate any actual or perceived incidence of favouritism based on a personal relationship.
As the case developed, it became apparent that there were some issues about who the policy applied to, and whether it had been adequately communicated to staff.
The company confronted the manager about the possibility that he might be in a personal relationship with an employee. He denied that he was.
Furthermore, he followed up his denial with an email which the Authority described as "vehement, petulant and defiant". The manager's view was that by expressing a view about his personal relationship, the company was discriminating against him unfairly.
He later repeated his denials, describing the nature of his relationship with the 16 year old girl as one of "friendship".
He later refined this definition to the curious description of "friends with benefits".
Some months later, the girl ended the relationship and formed a new relationship with another co-worker. The manager could not accept this decision, and experienced a degree of trauma and grief.
During this period, the manager contacted the girl and advised her to resign stating, in his view, that "it may be the best solution for both of us".
The girl did not resign. Instead, the company commenced a disciplinary investigation into the manager's conduct.
During that investigation, the manager admitted that he had been engaged in a sexual relationship with the girl.
For the company, this admission was damning for the manager. It meant that he had lied to it about the true nature of his relationship, and also that he had encouraged a subordinate employee to resign because of the break-up of the personal relationship.
The company concluded that the manager's conduct warranted his termination, but indicated a willingness to relocate him to a different store in the same role of duty manager. The manager rejected the offer to relocate. His employment was accordingly terminated.
The manager took issue with the decision to terminate.
The Authority found a number of deficiencies in the company's policies and processes. In particular, the Authority criticised the company for failing to allow the manager an opportunity to explain whether or why he had lied about the existence of his personal relationship.
For these different reasons, the Authority concluded that the manager's dismissal was unjustifiable.
But that was not the end of the matter. The Authority went on to consider the manager's contribution to his own demise. It found that he had behaved in a way that was "disingenuous, insincere and dishonest". On this basis, it concluded that the manager's actions were blameworthy, and that he was not deserving of any remedies.
Accordingly, no formal orders were made in favour of the manager.
This case is an illustration of the types of difficulties that can arise when personal relationships exist in the workplace.
In this case, there was a legitimate policy – with a valid purpose – of trying to ensure against conflicts between the obligations owed in the employment relationship, and those owed as a consequence of the personal relationship.
The real undoing in this case, however, was the employee's dishonesty and reluctance to comply with the policy. That act, of insincerity and dishonesty, compromised the principles which the employer was entitled to expect as an ordinary part of the employment relationship.
