Love Contracts

Contracts are all about promoting mutually beneficial exchanges.  And it turns out office romances can also fall into that category. National Public Radio reports that companies may benefit from facilitating such romances.  Romantically involved employees are happy, productive, loyal employees (once they get over the early part of the relationship, which apparently involves extra-long lunch breaks, pining, wool-gathering and other negative externalities associated with employees thinking about something other than the bottoom line).  As Southwest Airlines has discovered, two romantically-connected employees can share information about the company and become more than the sum of their parts.  As of 2002, Southwest employed more than 1000 married couples.

In order to protect themselves from sexual harassment suits in connection with such romances, companies are adopting so-called "love contracts."  Love Contracts (also called Relationship Contracts) are apparently especially common in the entertainment industry.  They permit employees to disclose their office romances while also shielding employers from liability.  A sample form Relationship Contract can be found here. 

What a lovely gift to get that special someone this Valentine's Day!

[Jeremy Telman]