The office gets romantic: TeamLease ‘Romance at the workplace’ survey

Mumbai: TeamLease Services, India's largest staffing company, has released the ''Romance at Workplace'' survey to understand the changing view of romance in India's workplaces.

The first in a series of survey commissioned by TeamLease to understand India's new world of work, the key findings of the current survey conducted by global research firm Synovate for TeamLease are as below.

Survey Results
• At least one third (34%) of the working executives from the corporate sector see no harm in romancing married colleagues.
• Overall, all factors contribute to an office affair. Though pre-dominantly executives (44%) attribute 'ambition-to-move-up-the-corporate-ladder' as the reason for romantic link-ups.
• More number of working executives (59%) feel women are equal partners in office romances and even they initiate affairs a number of times.
• Majority of the working executives (56%) polled feel organizations should not interfere in romantic involvement between employees.
• Organizational culture does affect one's behavior in office. The views are almost polarized – One half agreeing, the other disagreeing and a small section - has no clear view.
• Overall, at least 56% of those polled feel there is a negative impact on the quality and speed of work due to romantic liaisons at workplaces.
• Overall, 16% of those polled say they have been romantically involved with someone at their workplace. Delhi has at least 28% admitting.

''Understanding the changing view of romance in India's new world of work is emerging as a complex challenge for companies. This involves ethical, moral and productivity issues that need to be nuanced for context, cohort and values,'' said Surabhi Mathur, general manager of permanent staffing at Teamlease. 

Long work schedules, spending long hours in close proximity with the opposite gender is leading to workplace romances and affairs; and it is not just the single who are ready to mingle. Even married men and women are getting involved to a considerable extent.

The survey revealed that employees see getting involved with bosses as the quickest way to a salary increase or promotion. However, many feel affairs impact work productivity negatively.

A structured questionnaire was administered using a mix of telephonic and computer-aided-telephonic-interviewing (CATI) technology, to working men and women across all levels belonging to top 500 companies in India for a sample size of 402.

The cities where in the questionnaire was administered are Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Chandigarh and Hyderabad.