Manager Having An Affair

kcoffey

I believe my top performing manager is having an affair with one of her emlpoyees, that she is supervising. She has not disclosed this information to me, but has confided in two other employees and shared with them that she has loaned him $2,800, purchased him a cell phone, has had him over for dinner, comes to his job site on her day off and assist him in working. THese are just a few examples of what I have heard. However, now it has been brought to my attention by one of the facilities that she manages with this employee, that it is very obvious that there is something going on, they hug and flirt with each other all the time. She even fired another employee, because it was obvious that she felt they spent too much time together. She tells everyone, that they are just friends, but when she confides in others she asks that they please do not tell anyone and everything is getting back to me. Please advise, as I am afraid of this turning into a sexual harassment case.

stilldazed

You should proceed very carefully, but proceed. Has anyone actually complained? If so, what is the basis for the complaint?

kcoffey

Yes, the company manager at on of the facilities that we maintain. She said it is very obvious to her, and another employee that the manager (Manager having the affair) has been confiding in has been telling her everything that she has told her.

ray a

Since you have a complaint and you've heard enough through the grapevine to lend credence to the complaint, you should do an investigation just as if it were any other kind of a complaint. Determine the truth. Do you have a fraternization policy? That will determine how you proceed.

kcoffey

Can you share your fraternization policy?

ritaanz

Your manager has the authority to fire without discussing the situation with her boss? Seems you have several problems.

What have you personally observed? What you hear from others may not be reliable. Do some investigatng on your own.

Msferra

It already is a sexual harassment case. A couple of things come to mind. What they do outside of work is their business, but when it affects the productivity and performance of her work, the work of others and her ability to act as a professional in your company, then it becomes a company matter. You have a fudiciary responsibility to the company to act on this. Conducting a thorough investigation is going to be necessary and possibly uncomfortable. What we do at our company is to get the direct report involved and confront the employee(s) with the alleged information and put them on suspension until a comprehensive investigation is completed. Then HR along with the Manager/Director make a decision as to what actions are necessary. You may end up terminating both parties. Good luck!

davids

I am not seeing that sexual harassment has occurred. This appears to be a consensual affair. The fact that it is obvious to others does not make it harassment. Other than the employee who was fired, I don't see how this has negatively impacted anyone's employment. (And, although the employee who was fired may have a wrongful termination claim, it would not be a claim of sexual harassment.)

Having said that, it is not good HR practice to allow a supervisor to have an intimate relationship with a direct report. Does your company have a policy that controls this type of situation? If not, you will want to create one.

For now, I would talk to the supervisor and find out what's going on. Unless you have policies, union contract, etc. that prohibit you from transferring an employee, you should consider mvoing the supervison of the employee to another supervisor. If that is not possible, at the very least, set up a situation where all personnel actions impacting the subordinate employee are reviewed by a higher level manager. The review should look at the impact on other employees in the work unit (are they being relatively disadvantaged) not just whether the employee in the relationship has been advantaged.

Paul in Cannon Beach

A manager having an affair with an employee under their supervision is a serious problem. You have already listed several examples of this manager's questionable judgement: lending large amounts of money, purchasing a cell phone, getting rid of another employee.

I think you have an obligation to immediately investigate and determine the nature of the relationship and then take the appropriate steps.

I would also pay some attention to this manager's recent expense reports. Some of this relationship may have been funded on the company's dime.

WO

If an employee was fired due to the manager's affair w/another employee; you have a sexual harrassment claim waiting to be filed.

shlshsm

Once, I had a manager who was seen in a lip lock with an employee he supervised. Unfortunately, the employee who witnessed the lip lock and who told everyone she knew was discredited. After all, that lowly employee was trying to expose a manager.

The manager always had the love interest employee in his office which affected the morale of his entire department, and later the rest of the company. Everyone watched them like a hawk looking for any evidence of preferential treatment. The CEO refused to deal with it until the manager shared the affair with the department supervisor under his immediate supervision.

Everyone reacted when credence to the rumors was established. Once a bright shining star, the manager fell from grace in the company losing the respect of managers and all other employees. The stress became so great until the manager resigned. Feeling unprotected with disdain being displayed by all other employees against the love interest employee, the employee eventually resigned. Immediately following that, the harassment policy was instituted with all employees, particularly managers, being trained and warned against such behavior. Talking about tension in the workplace.

stilldazed

I agree with some of the prior posts. Look closely at your company's policy on fraternization. If you don't have one, now might be a good time to get one.

Sexual discrimination is basically in the eye of the beholder. If anyone has specifically complained about sexual discrimination (i.e., being offended by PDAs of these two people on the job), by all means investigation promptly and as thoroughly as possible. Treat it like any other sexual discrimination investigation. Look for evidence vs. hearsay/suspiscion. If someone has complained of being treated unfairly because of the preferential treatment to the male subject (i.e., loan, phone, etc.), my personal opinion without knowing your company's policy is that there is not a valid complaint unless those privileges are associated with the complainer's ability to get his/her job done--having them makes it easier vs. the challenges of getting the job done without them.

That said, you have a serious breach of ethics and professionalism on the part of the manager. She should be called to task for that. If you have a policy on ethical conduct for your managerial staff, see if you have something to act on. If not, now would be a good time to get one of those as well.

I absolutely agree that the supervisor should not be in the relationship, but my guess is that the issue is one of ethics & morals vs. allowed or not allowed. Sometimes we find that things that are unethical or immoral are allowed. Bottom line, go back to the nature of the complaint. Is it valid or motivated by jealousy? When you get that question answered, the rest will be easy. Just follow through as you would for any other complaint of its kind.

Best wishes.

System

While a lot of people have made a lot of very good points, I'd just like to point out here that you need not, and absolutely should not, wait until someone comes to you with a bona fide complaint of sexual harassment before conducting an investigation. In fact, under Title VII, an employer can be liable for hostile work environment sexual harassment if it knew *or should have known* that harassment was occurring and failed to take immediate action once it learned of the harassment.

Now, an investigation may reveal that no sexual harassment occurred, but if you have information that causes you to suspect potential harassment issues and you fail to investigate, that could result in serious liability for the company if someone files a charge of harassment later on down the road and it comes out that you heard that this stuff was going on but didn't bother looking into it further.

ACU Frank

The other part of the problem is simpler... You have a manager who has shown the ultimate poor judgment. Regardless of whether a claim is ever filed, this person is probably too stupid to be in a supervisory role.

Elizabetharess

Yep, I always think of labor law attorneys and the field day they will have with poor supervisors. In Wisconsin there is the determination of "Probable Cause" that xxx did happen. It can be anything that is a little askew in the whole process that is enough to throw any claim into the Probable Cause bucket. Once it's in there, its attorney time.
Nail down the facts and determine the problem-go from there.

mbeam

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-29-07 AT 06:36PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Absolutely investigate. There seems to be a strong perception of poor judgment on the manager's part at best especially if people think she fired someone due to her alleged paramour spending too much time with that individual.

It also makes you wonder when she's apparently comfortable enough to share this type of information with others. What else might she be sharing that could be considered confidential information?

Believe in the theory, when a problem arises like this, if you dig further, you'll find it's just the tip of the iceberg.