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One upside of returning to the office? More workplace romances, study finds
Apparently, love is in the air — at the office. Nearly 30% of workers say that they have had a romantic relationship at work since returning to the office, after a pandemic-related hiatus from showing up in person, according to a survey from career site Resume Builder.
Indeed, many major corporations have implemented mandatory return-to-office policies, forcing employees to work shoulder-to-shoulder at least a couple of days a week.
Half of those who said they’ve experienced workplace romance said their relationship was with a superior, while 46% said they were smitten by a subordinate.
The majority of those in relationships with work colleagues said they did not inform human resources about it, the survey found.
Happier at work?
Certainly, the promise of seeing your significant other at the office could improve morale and make going to the office more palatable, especially for employees who miss working from home.
Two-thirds of employees who’d been in relationships with colleagues said it had a positive impact on their work, Resume Builder found.
For some, the workplace has proved to be a decent dating pool. Of those who started a romantic relationship at the office, 46% said they had a relationship with one colleague, while 41% say they’d been in relationships with two coworkers. Fourteen percent said they’ve dated three or more people they met at work.
Less than half — 47% — of those surveyed say they saw no potential for romance at work, and have neither started a romantic relationship nor had a crush on any colleagues.
“While in-office romance has always been around, it’s important to understand the implications of these relationships,” said Resume Builder’s Resume and Career Strategist Julia Toothacre in an article on the study on the Resume Builder website. “There is a power dynamic when it’s a boss/subordinate relationship, which can lead to things like favoritism or getting let go if the relationship ends.”
Pitfalls to dating a coworker
Resume Builder surveyed nearly 1,500 people in February 2024.
There can be other pitfalls to falling for a coworker, especially if the relationship violates company policy. Romantic relationships at the office can also lead to distractions at work, if one’s focused on a colleague rather than a work task at hand.
“I encourage people to check their employee handbook for policies around dating co-workers. Some places don’t allow it, and others require you to acknowledge the relationship,” Toothacre added.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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