BCBusiness

July/August 2022 - The Top 100

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1471305

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 26 of 83

Y ou're a top executive at a large company with many divisions. At a company retreat, you meet another executive—he's on your level and works in an entirely different location. Things click over chit-chat and canapés, and you find yourself becoming...interested. Should you ask him to meet up for an after-work drink? Can you? Journey with me back to New York City in the early 1960s, and to the fictional office of Sterling Cooper, the ad agency at the centre of the television series Mad Men. This was a different time, when advertising wasn't just eyeballs and algorithms but also about work-life balance—at least according to the slyly named Joan Holloway, overseer of what was then known as the "secretarial pool." As she escorts the "new girl," Peggy, through the office, Joan asks, "So how many trains did it take you?" Only one, Peg- gy replies—but she had to get up very early to catch it. Joan assures Peggy that if she makes the "right moves," she'll be living in Manhattan soon. "Of course, if you really make the right moves, you'll be out in the country," Joan adds, "and you won't be going to work at all." Oh, dear. Today, of course, that paradigm is as dead and buried as the secretarial pool. That said, office romances can and do happen. Contrary to popular belief, they're not always a quick path to a pink slip. Nor need they be. But how to ensure that your dating and work life don't mix like nitro and glycerin? First, a dose of reality: although the Rat Pack years are long behind us, office romances are hardly rare. "Realistically, that's where so many relationships form—in the workplace," says Robin Turnill, a human resources consultant with North Vancouver–based Pivot HR Services. "I think what's re- ally key here," Turnill adds, addressing the introductory scenario, "is that they would be on the same level, so the concept of power differential really doesn't exist." Things get challenging, however, when those differ- ences are in play. "Let's say the same executive wanted to ask [out] a member of their lead- ership team, or maybe even someone more junior. That gets extremely problematic." In this case, pressure is practically knotted into any overture. "No matter how casually a senior level person frames it to someone who is not on the same hierarchical level, because that power imbalance is there it makes it very hard for someone to say no, or to feel comfortable that they can say no," Turnill says. And certainly, persistent unwelcome advanc- es from someone in a position of relative power would fall into the sexual harassment realm— #MeToo is written all over this kind of move. This isn't the only landmine. Even if the situation is wholly consensual, there's also the way your colleagues might per- ceive the relationship. If there's a whiff of favouritism, things quickly get more layered than a pousse-café. (Especially when salary decisions are involved.) And if it doesn't work out? Both parties are now in an im- possible spot: the junior person may now fear reprisal or career stagnation, while the senior col- league may be unable to fully perform duties that should fall within their purview—like, for example, disciplining or even critiquing someone who works under them. So what's the company's role in this? "The employer's job is to educate their employ- ees as to what they consider ac- ceptable consensual workplace relationships, and what the pa- rameters around those would be," Turnill says. For example, they could explicitly forbid relationships between different hierarchical levels. Or if a power imbalance naturally occurs—like when one person is promoted to a posi- tion of relative superiority over their romantic partner—ensure that the couple declare a con- flict of interest, and that any de- cisions involving, say, salary or promotion are left to a neutral third party. Clearly stated company guidelines are key. So is com- mon sense. "If you're in a posi- tion where you can make salary decisions or employment deci- sions for someone else," Turnill says, "you shouldn't be asking them out." Fictional scenario. Not in- tended as legal advice. £ S H I F T H A P P E N S Sweet Deals The office romance is alive and well, but how can you engage without killing your—or your partner's—career? by Guy Saddy ISTOCK ( the informer ) JULY/AUGUST 2022 BCBUSINESS 27

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of BCBusiness - July/August 2022 - The Top 100