In love with your colleague: can it go well at work?

Created: 12/22/2021 Updated: 12/22/2021, 3:43 PM

Kisses at work: Relationships between employees are not automatically a problem at work.

© Joseffson / Westend61 / dpa-tmn

Do you only have eyes for your colleague at work?

Or is the flirtation with your colleague long since more than that?

Falling in love at work can create problems.

But it doesn't have to be.

Employees spend a large part of the day at work.

Always surrounded by the same colleagues.

Together with them you work on tasks, achieve goals or fail because of them.

That welds together.

But what

Do you prefer to keep your feelings to yourself?

Or do you reveal your crush on your colleague?

That depends, says Madeleine Leitner, psychologist and career coach from Munich.

On the one hand, on the initial situation: If the participants are single, the constellation is initially unproblematic.

If either or both are married, the situation can quickly become rather delicate.

Especially when there are hierarchical dependencies.

On the other hand, according to Leitner, it depends on how you develop your own feelings: Do you fall in love and out of love quickly?

Or are the feelings to be taken very seriously when they arise?

What has been said is difficult to take back

Those who openly address the topic must be aware that what has been said is difficult to retract afterwards. Madeleine Leitner therefore advises you to first

how

colleague will react to it. Do the feelings meet with love? Or does the other person turn subtly? That gives both the chance to save face.

Christoph Burger, a qualified psychologist and career advisor from Herrenberg, recommends taking a middle course in the event of uncertainty: Let time pass, define clear communication signals and wait for the reaction of the chosen one. And only then decide whether to address the person about it. “Will the consequences be the desired ones? Unfortunately there is no guarantee for that. ”But the testing time and the reaction tests increase the likelihood of making the right decision.

It

can still happen

that the

.

Then, according to Burger, clear agreements are needed on how to proceed.

Are joint projects still conceivable?

And if so, which rules should be followed?

For example, does one of the participants enjoy flirting without obligation and did that lead to the unfortunate misunderstanding?

Then it must be clear: This is the end of it now.

Also read:

Company policy: How does the employer feel about couples?

But what if the feelings are mutual?

Is it

or to deal with it openly?

That depends on the company culture and the people involved, says Madeleine Leitner.

The qualified psychologist knows companies in which relationships between employees are officially undesirable.

After all, relationships change a lot within the team.

But there are also companies that support partnerships in the workplace.

A clear common stance is important, says Burger.

In addition, possible scenarios should be played out before the announcement.

Who will react and how?

Are there possibly cold rivals?

Or are there people in the professional power game who recognize the relationship status as a weakness and mercilessly exploit it?

If it is clear how things can go on for everyone involved, the relationship can be made public, according to Christoph Burger.

When it comes to an

, Madeline Leitner advises that it

.

Work and private life remain separate

The couple can expect to be watched with eagle eyes once their relationship status is revealed.

That is why it is better to be over-correct, especially at the beginning, says Leitner.

That means: do not discuss confidential professional matters with your partner.

And vice versa, do not fight out any private matters in the company.

"What nobody needs: Lovers who think that everyone should be present for the pleasant, difficult or even intimate aspects of their private life," says Christoph Burger.

Ideally, an open relationship between work colleagues should not have any negative effects on the job.

Also read

Date bans by the employer are legally ineffective

From a purely

.

“The boss buys the workforce, not the love life of his employees,” says Alexander Bredereck, specialist lawyer for labor law from Berlin.

The employer can only respond with a warning or dismissal if the quality of the work performance suffers or if moral customs are violated.

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Nevertheless, in his experience, intimate relationships between employees are not welcome.

Anger often follows indirectly, for example through professional disadvantages.

There are companies that, for example

, want to prevent relationships between employees

with

, says Bredereck.

Although this is ineffective, it still leads to great pressure on those affected.

"Not a nice picture when you consider that almost a third of all couples get to know each other through work."

That will be difficult: flirting across hierarchical levels

Flirtations, affairs or relationships across hierarchical levels get really complicated.

According to Burger, job and private life are almost inevitably mixed up.

According to Madeline Leitner, anyone who hooks up with his or her boss must expect team members to treat you with the necessary caution from this point on.

If such a relationship develops, extreme caution is required: Even a loose flirtation could catapult a career fatally, says Burger.

Also interesting:

In the event of a separation, dealing must remain professional

In the end, no relationship is immune from failure.

Not even in the workplace.

But what if the relationship breaks up at some point?

Then it is important

it

, says career advisor Burger: "Open arguments, a poisoned atmosphere between the ex-partners, complicated communication with a false bottom - all of these things are taboo."

"There are fair separations and even divorced couples who continue to work well together or who run successful companies together," says Madeline Leitner.

Fighting a war of the roses in the company, however, could not be in the interests of those involved.

That’s not going well.

Instead, in such a case, it could make sense to behave according to the saying “the smarter gives in”.