Ask a Manager: My friend will be managing his boyfriend at our non LGBTQ-friendly company

[minoanmiss]

I work at the same company as one of my close friends, Mark, albeit not in the same department. About two months ago, he entered a relationship with one of his peers, James. I am very happy for them and Mark is very invested in this relationship. However, in a few weeks, Mark is going to be promoted to a manager role, where he will be supervising James. At our company, managers and direct reports cannot enter a new relationship and pre-existing relationships must be reported to HR.

This situation is complicated by the fact that neither Mark and James are out, and our company is not particularly LGBTQ-friendly (it pays lip service but the company policies do not reflect that). Mark has told me he is planning on continuing the relationship without informing HR, and I am concerned about the potential repercussions. While I don’t think Mark would blatantly favor his partner through promotions or anything, they do eat lunch together and I worry about the optics of that once Mark is promoted, or any unintentional biases. Additionally I worry about what would happen if they went through a messy breakup or if they become very serious and the relationship somehow gets leaked anyway.

My internal opinion is that it would be best for one of them to switch jobs but I don’t know if that is the best course of action or if I even have a right to weigh in on this since I would essentially be advocating for Mark to fire his boyfriend.

Ooooh nooo. Mark cannot manage his boyfriend. That can lead to huge abuses of power and conflicts of interest (even if he doesn’t intend it to), or the appearance of them, and it will be terrible for their relationship! You can’t have a healthy relationship where one person has power over the other. Nor can you manage effectively when you’re dating an employee — it generally means that the employee’s performance isn’t assessed appropriately, they’re not given adequate feedback, and favoritism affects others on the team. It also can open up your company to charges of harassment down the road (“I wanted to break up with him, but he implied it would affect my standing at work”). Most companies have a no-dating-subordinates policy, and if it ever comes out that they’re dating, Mark is at high risk of being fired (and rightly so).

Ideally Mark would disclose his relationship with James to the company, but if that’s not a safe option, then yes, one of them does need to leave (or move to a different team internally). That doesn’t mean advocating that Mark fire James though (that too would be an abuse of power) — this should be something they do voluntarily.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Again my comment is a bit sidelong. I'm not sure how I'd feel if I were Mark or James and I saw this letter -- I hope LW let Mark know they'd be writing in, in which case I might grudgingly acquiesce that I asked for advice and my friend didn't think they had enough homemade advice so they outsourced it. If I hadn't known I think I might be upset.

[heavenscalyx]

I mean, AAM is absolutely right, but there have been queer relationships with this problem for decades, at least. I think they need to figure it out between them, and this person needs to say their piece once and butt the hell out.

[lavendertook]

Yeah, but LW is asking should they "weigh in on this" and the adviser hasn't answered that. I'd say LW certainly has no business informing the company and outing Mark and James if that is under "weigh in". Whether they should talk to Mark about it should be felt out if they feel Mark is welcoming the advice. Mark is a close friend but even though they are in different departments, they are still coworkers in the same company, so LW needs to handle it delicately and not make Mark fear that they might report on them.

[minoanmiss]

LW fortunately made it clear in the comments they have no intention of outing Mark, which is good, because if they had said they intended to my white hot rage would have transformed me into plasma so I could surge down the internet cables and find them.