Is Love on the Table at Your Workplace?

4 Min Read By Jenn Betts

As a product of a workplace romance (that led to a 40-year strong marriage), I’ve always been interested in the legal and practical issues surrounding workplace relationships.  But, in our modern workplace environment, where remote work remains prevalent and the #MeToo movement raised sexual harassment awareness, a reasonable assumption would be that workplace romances are on the downswing.  Not so, according to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”).  In fact, SHRM’s data suggests that the number of workplace romances is rising:  one-third of U.S. employees are currently involved in or have been romantically involved with a coworker.  This is an increase from 27 percent who reported workplace romances pre-COVID.  

In addition to this data, there are certain industries that never pivoted to remote, or that continue to have high in-person population density—restaurants and hotels being perfect examples.  In these industries…