Here’s How To Avoid It So You Don’t Or Fix It If You Did
Having been through a divorce, you might be feeling lonely and vulnerable. You might even find yourself on the rebound and aggressively looking for new romantic relationships. While it’s important to develop friendships at work, and perhaps use these work-related friends as part of your emotional support system outside of the workplace, your place of employment should never be where you look for dating prospects.
It’s also important, in terms of your job security, to utilize your time on the job to focus on your career and not allow the upheaval in your personal life to negatively impact your job. Consider yourself lucky if you have co-workers and/or superiors willing to provide emotional support, don’t overly rely on it.Emotional support after a divorce is available from professional therapists, and hopefully from close personal friends and family. As you try to rebuild your social circle, try to incorporate work-related acquaintances, but there are distinct boundaries, which will vary based on where you work and your job title.
Despite the common sense reasons why office romances don’t make sense, a recent study by Vault.com found that 59 percent of workers across the U.S. admit to having had a workplace romance at some point in their career, with another 17 percent willing to do so if given the opportunity.
No matter how desperate you feel, pursuing romance at work is almost always a mistake, especially if you’re hoping to remain working for the same employer over the long-term. Affairs often end badly and can damage your professional reputation, not to mention put your job in jeopardy. Even if dating co-workers, subordinates or superiors is not against company policy,
when the relationship ends, your ability to work side-by-side with that person will be difficult and bring potential conflict to the workplace.
Matt Horan, the owner of Great Circle Coaching, helps clients in the United Kingdom and the United States examine their professional lives and make career transitions for greater life satisfaction.He said people who complicate their careers with an office affair may be saying less about their emotional lives and more about their job satisfaction.
“When you don’t feel passionate about your career, there may be a willingness to sabotage it with an office romance,” Horan said. “When you get caught up in the romance, you may find yourself thinking: ‘Who cares if it ends badly and I lose my job? I’ll just find another one.’ If so, my advice is to find a job you love and to do so on your own terms. It’s better than taking the chance of being escorted out of your current job by the security staff. However, if you really love your career, consider that when making a choice about whether to get romantically involved with a coworker.The key here is to be aware of what is important to you and to make your choices from that place of awareness.”
Plus, the potential of having to deal with sexual harassment allegations and the related legal ramifications is a huge problem that could destroy your career. According to a study conducted by SHRM/CareerJournal.com, 70 percent of HR professionals said their company had no official verbal or written policy on workplace romance. Of the policies that did exist, only 20 percent permitted workplace relationships, while 31 percent did not. Another 48 percent of employers permitted but discouraged on-the-job romance.
Most people are not paid for socializing as part of the job. However, your ability to get along with co-workers is essential to your professional success.Getting along with the people you work with will greatly reduce on-the-job politics,” and having to worry about people stabbing you in the back so they can move themselves ahead within the company at your expense.Sure, there will always be difficult people you’re forced to work with whom you don’t like, or whom you’d never consider socializing with outside of work. However, developing the skills necessary to build and maintain professional relationships will benefit your career and reduce your work-related stress.
10 Tips For Developing Professional Work Relationships
The following 10 tips will help you develop professional relationships without crossing boundaries:
1. Make an effort to demonstrate an interest in everyone by being approachable, friendly and outgoing. Avoid becoming part of a small clique.
2. Develop your listening skills so you’ll better understand the point-of-view. Instead of only talking about yourself, ask lots of open-ended questions and get to know the people you’re working with.
3.Become active in company activities. If no organized activities are available, consider working with your superiors to start some.
4. Don’t become known as someone who gossips or speaks badly about others behind their backs.
5. Avoid discussing topics at work that could be offensive or create an uncomfortable work environment. Subjects like religion, politics, dirty jokes or racist or sexist comments should always be avoided.
6. Accept the fact that some or many of the people you work with won’t become your best friends. Remain open minded when it comes to accepting their lifestyle choices. Their personal lives should not impact job performance.
7. Get to know co-workers during coffee breaks, your lunch hour, or by getting together after work. Avoid preconceived or stereotypical judgments based on their appearance, sex, job title, level of education, personality or gossip you’ve heard about them.
8. Until you’ve developed a personal bond with your coworkers, avoid discussing your personal life, including the nasty details relating to your divorce, coworkers financial problems, custody battles related to your kids, or your current sex life. These topics are not appropriate for the workplace.
9. As you get to know your coworkers, try to develop a common bond through conversation.Topics like what happened on last week’s episode on your favorite TV show (like American Idol, Lost or Dancing with the Stars), the weather or a movie you’ve just watched can also provide the building blocks for a more fruitful conversation. Finding a bond reduces social barriers.
10. Avoid allowing one friend at work to jeopardize your ability to interact as part of the overall team. Save personal conversations about social plans or activities for after work or during breaks.
While at work, always maintain a professional attitude, even if you believe you’ve developed a close bond with someone. Unfortunately, in today’s business world, people tend to look out for themselves, and if necessary, are willing to put their professional friendships on the line to benefit themselves or their careers. Knowing this, however, should not keep you from building friendships at work. Simply understand that these friendships often come with limits or boundaries.
