Employee Romance

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ken Burgin on January 3, 2008 at 3:28pm

The world needs more love, not less, so let's encourage relationship building.

Danger points are when one party wants to end it and what effects this might have on co-workers if there's drama. Also if the relationship is with someone more senior who could influence the junior's conditions or promotion etc.

As with all these things, write down the key points, discuss with the team and develop a clear written policy.

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Permalink Reply by Michael L. Atkinson on January 3, 2008 at 5:23pm

Love, love love...and it's usually young love so it's likely fleeting. Relax. It's a part of the business and managers are sometimes the worst offenders.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Urdan on January 20, 2008 at 1:06pm

When I went through training for my first restaurant manager job, a very wise HR professional addressed the situation this way:

There are 300 million people living in the United States Today.
There are 29,000 that work for our company.
That leaves you 299 million, 971 thousand people to date.

It was probably the wisest and most useful advice I've ever received as a restaurant manager.

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Randy Caparoso on March 9, 2008 at 3:43pm

Surfer Girl,

I know this is an old post, and I thought it was a shame no one really weighed the pros and cons.

But first, re your question about wines by the glass in another post: I put up one called "Rewriting Restaurant Wine Lists" just yesterday. It's a technical one on markups and percentages, but I hope it helps.

So then, about employees dating, here's my take from the perspective of someone who's been managing restaurants since 1988: employees date, and there's not a thing you can do about it. The only danger is when they collude towards stealing, so you have to make sure all your security measures are in place. Do not, for instance, allow two people who are dating to requisition liquor, wine, etc. from each other without the product being rung in. So you need a system that assures that no one, whether they are dating or not, can get something without the proper procedure being followed.

Secondly, by and large you usually want to minimize them working together. So try to schedule them in different shifts, or try to make sure they are not working on the same parties as a team. Most people prefer to minimize contact with their significant other at work anyhow, so this is not an unusual measure.

Otherwise, the only other thing you have to worry about are emotional issues. When they break up, it can be messy; and so it takes patience on everyone's part to get through that. Nevertheless, I lost count long ago the number of employees who have dated, established long term relationships, and then married and even had kids, living happily ever after. Of course, most of these happy couples eventually split up and go their separate ways insofar as employment, but I've actually seen couples continue to work side by side quite successfully for years and years.

A lot of companies prohibit couples from working together, and I'm against that precisely because I know people can make it work. It's simply unfair that some companies don't give them a chance, and it only hurts the companies if the employees involved are very good at what they do.

Finally, one last caveat: the one type relationship I am very uncomfortable with, and have actively worked to discourage or even prevent, is that of between a manager (or owner) and employee. This really doesn't work. One of my best friends, a former manager who I dearly love and value, got caught in that web once. She started dating a waiter, and so the usual resentment among the rest of the staff developed; and we had to ask one of them to leave the company. She ended up leaving; and although at the time things were quite upsetting for everyone, she has remained a close friend anyhow, and has since even worked for me on a number of projects and events.

Heck, the owner of one of my restaurants for whom I worked once started dating a hostess. Again, I didn't object to this, but there was no way we could allow that hostess to continue working in the restaurant without causing problems with the rest of the staff. Again, we asked that the hostess resign (can't fire the owner), and they continued their relationship for a good four, five years after.

Would a manager/employee relationship work in a restaurant? Personally, I think every situation like this has to be judged on an individual basis. I would not make it a permanent "policy" to prohibit this, because in some situations it could very well work out (I once had an executive chef whose husband was a sous chef in the same kitchen, and there were never any problems).

So that's my take. Hope that helps!

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