Where love has gone...

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in the workplace. There is no explicit or implicit encouragement or discouragement of such relationships,” says Narendra Puppala, VP, global HR, Birlasoft. Puppala goes on to say that, while the company is mindful of the fact that twosomes in the office will be increasingly more common as the services sector employs a young work force, as long as it does not affect the work atmosphere, they would prefer not to interfere. “At the same time, if there are cases where such a relationship results in actual or perceived favouritism, we would intervene,” he adds.

Agrees Sharma, “In my office, this isn’t encouraged a lot and once the management gets to know, people are put in different teams.”

Mohan Kapoor, who has worked in the IT industry for 12 years in India and the US, says, “Official rules can’t prevent these affairs from happening. People won’t leave their partners. They would rather change the organisation. In the US, workplace intimacy is common in the IT industry, and it is catching on here now.”

A reality check

“Long working hours, spending continuous longer hours in close proximity among others are the major factors in this emerging trend in which married men and women are getting involved to a considerable extent. Understanding the changing view of romance in India’s new world of work is emerging as a complex challenge for companies. This involves ethical, moral and productivity issues that need to be nuanced for context, cohort and values,” says Surabhi Mathur, general manager for permanent staffing, Teamlease.

Mini Ravindran, a journalist with a leading television channel, says, “We have a policy that relatives cannot work in the same organisation. But what do you do when people enter the organisation and then get involved. There are open secrets of inter-office and intra-office affairs. As for the extramarital affairs, obviously there are no approval or rules at the organisational level.”

Handling break-ups