Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1991 TAG: 9103280514
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SYLVIA RUBIN/ SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We kept our engagement a secret for six months," said Nancy Jenny, now a detective.
Now, nearly five years after their marriage - and five more weddings in the department, not to mention four sets of brothers - her superiors have thrown up their hands and are rewriting the rules about members of the same family working together.
And no wonder. Times have changed since many companies banned such working relationships out of fear that they could lead to favoritism.
Now, employers are realizing that such relationships can go on with no harm to their firms.
"There are so many family-run businesses now, in which the head of the companies hire their friends or relatives or even people they are not married to but involved with, that the word `nepotism' no longer applies," said Eric Flamholtz, professor of management at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"It's an anachronistic concept."
The reality is that the office has become the pool from which we choose friends - and lovers.
"The issue really is that an increasing percentage of people are spending a great deal of their lives around their profession," Flamholtz said.
"People work with each other, get involved with each other. It's a widespread phenomenon. It's an issue of the '90s."
In researching her 1989 book, "Office Romance: Love, Power & Sex in the Workplace," Lisa Mainiero found that policies are being revised at firms across the country as more couples meet on the job and marry. Mainiero is an associate professor of management at the School of Business at Fairfield University in Connecticut.
Even more common, she said, "the policy is still on the books, but it's not being executed. Management is looking the other way."
Examples of this changing attitude are everywhere. In the academic world, universities are deluged with so many husband-wife applicants that they might be out of business if they did not accept them as a team.
Some universities, such as Stonybrook on Long Island and Northwestern in Chicago, "go out of their way to hire couples. It's to their advantage since there are so many applying," Fisher said.
The issue has even reached outer space. NASA is reviewing its policies to see if newlywed astronauts Jan Davis and Mark Lee can fly a 1992 space shuttle flight together.
"We've never had to deal with this before," said Barbara Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "It's a first."
According to Howard Mitchell, professor of human resources and management at the Wharton School in Philadelphia, many policies presume you are guilty before the trial.
"I've seen nepotism policies at companies established in a blind way, before there was any evidence of favoritism," Mitchell said. "It seems to me that in those cases, the people don't have the same right as an alleged criminal - you shouldn't be judged guilty without evidence of guilt."
Not all employers share this view. If you work for the city of Albany, Calif., you had best look for romance outside the office.
A strict city policy, in effect since 1981, forbids married couples from working in the same department. If you are unlucky enough to fall in love and marry, one of you has to transfer to another department. If there are no openings, and you cannot be placed within 120 days, you are fired.
In the work place, it is usually better to keep husbands and wives - and sons and daughters - in separate departments, said Mainiero.
Although she believes in office romances, Mainiero thinks it is healthier for husbands and wives not to work too closely together.
"What I tell companies is that their nepotism policy should not permit married couples in a boss-subordinate relationship," she said. "My research showed that when husbands or wives reported to one another, it opened a Pandora's box in the office.
"Co-workers would assume some sort of favoritism was taking place even if the couple was bending over backward to avoid that assumption. It destroyed morale in the offices I studied."
Spouses seem to fare better in lateral relationships, Mainiero said. "It becomes even more ideal if the couples work in separate departments. I had one case where the co-workers were pushing the couple to get married!"
by CNB