Four percent of human resource (HR) professionals and 14 percent of employees say that dating in the workplace shouldn't be permitted, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Wall Street Journal's CareerJournal.com.
However, 80 percent of HR professionals and 60 percent of employees oppose dating between a supervisor and a subordinate, the survey found.
The survey included responses from 493 HR professionals and 408 employees. The researchers conducted a similar survey in 2001.
The 2006 survey found that more than 70 percent of organizations have no policies on workplace romance, and of those that do, the vast majority discourage dating rather than forbid it. Only 9 percent of organizations prohibit dating in the workplace entirely.
HR professionals may be shifting their concerns about problems stemming from workplace romance, according to the survey.
In a similar survey conducted in 2001, 95 percent of HR professionals said they feared sexual harassment claims would stem from office romances, and 12 percent reported that they were concerned about retaliation or conflicts between co-workers after a relationship ended.
In the 2006 survey, 77 percent of HR professionals reported sexual harassment concerns, and 67 percent said they had concerns about retaliation.