Focus
More romance in the workplace
By Wang Wen (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-21 07:55
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Office relationships are still sort of taboo in Beijing, despite their increasing prevalence
Beijingers are spending an increasing amount of their time and energy at work, making the office the main social networking place for many. Office relationships are unavoidable in such an environment.
A survey of 300 people in Beijing found that 27 percent of the 154 survey respondents who are married to their work colleagues, an 8 percentage point increase compared with 2007.
This makes the office the main source of future partners for white-collar workers in Beijing.
However Beijingers have mixed opinions about office relationships, according to the survey, which was conducted by one of China's biggest job-hunting website, 51job.com.
About 90 percent of the survey's 146 single respondents said they aren't opposed to finding a suitable partner in the office, but about 60 percent of them also said that they are adversely affected by others' office relationships, particularly those between employees and supervisors.
"I think relationships between employees and supervisors are based on the employees' desire for promotion, not on real love," said a 27-year-old woman surnamed Hu, who works in a company in Beijing.
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Most of the respondents in the survey said people in an office relationship gone bad would likely have a hard time working together at the same company afterwards.
Feng Lijuan, chief human resource consultant with 51job.com, said people should be cautious about office relationships even though they are increasingly common.
She said relationships in offices inevitably affect the involved employees' image at work and change the way their other colleagues interact with them.
According to the survey, fewer than 6 percent of the 154 married respondents said their husbands or wives were still their work colleagues after marriage. Feng suggests if a relationship is steady, one of the lovers consider changing jobs.
Although office relationships were traditionally forbidden, some companies are now accepting, and even encouraging, in the belief they may help keep work teams stable.
A majority of survey respondents said they think companies have difficulty managing young people involved in office relationships.
But most respondents also said their employers are starting to realize a good life-work balance can help boost employees' productivity.
Twelve percent of the survey respondents said they are benefiting from their companies' Employee Assistance Programs. Such programs are intended to help employees deal with personal problems that might adversely impact their work performance, health, and well-being.
Many companies have established clubs and relationship hotlines to help employees with relationship problems, according to the survey, and some are even considering granting paid leaves to employees who suffer emotional distress from failed relationships.
