Overlapping personal and professional relationships in the workplace creates serious negative outcomes for the organisation. Workplace relationships are complicated because people have personal and professional relationships with co-workers.
Weak and unprofessional leaders depend on such relationships and it’s always the weak managers who love such relationships to be in the good books of the leader.
Fair and unbiased assessment of managers’ abilities and treating managers on merits is a significant feature in a professional organisation and this aspect of management is critical to harness the best in every key manager.
Informal relationships of any nature costs the company significant value. Personal relationships come true in personal or professional life. Leaders who engage in such relations; try to create a kind of personal intimacy.
For example they have some common interests and personal traits, enjoy talking to each other, feel comfortable in communication, and spend time together. This can also lead to gossip and resentment among others at the workplace.
When leaders spend a lot of time with their colleagues, talking about non-core business activities and seek ‘favours’ instead of formally assigning work and making them accountable if it’s an activity that only the chosen manager can perform, it can turn sour.
It’s inevitable that sometimes working relationships turn into intimate personal relationships. If the chosen person is the wrong one who loves to depend on ‘intimate relationship’ rather than well-defined and entrusted professional accountabilities, it brings down the morale of the peers and across all levels eventually.
This is a common problem is unprofessional organisations that are not driven by proper HR policies and best practices. However much the leader tries to keep it under wraps, the manager when the opportunity arises will give it publicity to gain undue respect from his colleagues. This can bring disastrous results in the long run.
Policy driven
Relationship policies regulate work and personal relationships within a workplace. These rules exist to reduce favouritism or discrimination from creating a hostile organisational and unfair organisational culture. They may also build clear disciplinary processes for different misdemeanours, making it easier for colleagues to seek redress if they are unfairly disciplined.
Relationship policies provide certainty over the acceptability or unacceptability of certain behaviour at work, making it easier for individuals to seek redress for poor treatment. For example, if an employer creates an internal hiring process for a managerial role, relationship policies may obligate recruiters to disclose any special relationships with any applicant.
Other candidates may then feel confident about receiving impartial treatment during the interview process. If the recruiter still shows undue favouritism towards their partner or spouse, other candidates may take action by requesting meetings with senior management or making a formal complaint.
Relationship policies can also improve an organisation’s professional reputation by reassuring external actors that the company doesn’t tolerate abuse or discrimination. These policies may prove to potential job applicants that they might expect fair and respectful treatment during the hiring process and after joining the company.
This positive reputation can encourage more professionals to apply for available roles, increasing the number and quality of candidates. A relationship policy can also reassure potential clients that they can trust the business to be transparent about its internal processes and past mistakes.
Ruining culture
Relationship policies might also encourage accountability by creating accepted behavioural standards against which to judge colleagues’ conduct based on the assigned job profile.
As relationship policies often explain disciplinary procedures for different rule violations, employees clearly recognise the consequences of discrimination and inconsiderate behaviour.
These rules can encourage professionals to behave respectfully and take ownership of mistakes, leading to a more open performance based and cooperative workplace culture. Positive cultures can also deliver lasting productive benefits as colleagues build increased mutual trust, making it easier to share both tasks and positive feedback.
Cover any work you assign in a formal way. Do not try to cover up leadership failure by informally asking managers to ‘help’. If there is a strong business case to ask a manager to perform a job outside his co-scope for good business reasons, make it transparent.
Do not allow bad managers to take advantage of you. Do not favour unless it’s based on performance and performance only.
Learn to calculate the potential business value loss of such informal work assignments and odd jobs. Do not do anything deliberately to ruin a business due to your poor judgement.
