Legal issue analysis and framework

Fraternization is usually defined by most people as the act of dating someone that one works with or works for. Some companies even go so far as to consider being friends outside of the workplace as fraternization, and they forbid this practice. This is not an overly common practice, but there are some places that hold this opinion. It is, however, somewhat frivolous to assume that people who work around each other all of the time will not develop friendships, and it is also difficult to stop this from happening. In order to get into trouble for this kind of behavior, employers must see it occurring, and this is not a likely occurrence, especially in larger communities where there are a lot of people. Employers usually will not follow employees around to make sure that they are not spending time with one another, and an employer that does this could get himself or herself into trouble for stalking or other problems that could arise from this.

Because of the difficulties in forcing individuals to avoid becoming friends with those that they work with, most employers no longer consider friendships part of fraternization, or against the rules, although it can become an issue if it appears that it is affecting the work performance of one of both of the individuals. Many employers, however, still see workplace dating as a problem. This is especially true for people that work in the Human Resource or Finance departments, as they are often the ones that are aware of sensitive information, and employees who date these people have too much potential for finding out information that is protected and should not be divulged. This is one of the reasons that many employers feel the need to have no-fraternization policies in place for their employees, or at least for employees that work in departments where sensitive information and private records are kept (Wilson, Filosa, and Fennel, 2003).

There is also the issue of breaking up. Inter-office relationships that end badly often bring many hard feelings to the working environment, and these feelings tend to make other people uncomfortable when they are faced with acting as though nothing is wrong, or when they feel forced to take sides between the two former lovers. The breakup can also affect the company, as the two individuals involved in the broken relationship may still have to work together closely, participate on the same teams, and attend the same meetings. Discomfort about doing those things often doesn't occur to people when they are dating, and the problem only appears later, when they have ended their relationship for one reason or another and suddenly realize that they still must see each other every day, no matter what their feelings for one another may be.