Your Manager Is In Love With Your Staff: How To Manage Romantic Relationships In Your Business

A manager and a staff member who suddenly get along very well, a client deal that falls apart, and a CEO who senses there is more to the story. Here is how to manage romance at work before it costs your business.

The sales manager now stays back late to wait for the admin officer. They also arrive together and seem to laugh a lot just before they enter the office. He said they live close and he drives, so why not. He is just a kind Samaritan and a good team mate. But everyone notices the quick glances and soft smiles. The receptionist told the unofficial staff group members that the sales manager has ordered food for both himself and the admin officer every day for almost 3 weeks. Then one day, the admin officer came to work by herself, visibly angry at something or someone. The sales manager also arrived in his car at a different time. He seemed reserved and distant at a client meeting. The admin officer was expected to work with him to close a current client on a new deal, but for some reason they both refused to speak with each other and the deal was lost. They apologized but, as the CEO, your mind tells you there is more to what has happened.

Romance at work is one of the oldest stories in business, and one of the least managed. Many Nigerian business owners handle it the way they handle a leaking roof in the rainy season. They hope it will stop on its own. It rarely does.

Why Romance Grows in the Office

Most relationships start with time and closeness, and the workplace supplies both. Between early resumption, long meetings and the traffic home, many workers in Lagos and Abuja spend more waking hours with colleagues than with their families. Shared targets, late nights and site visits also mean shared pressure, and shared pressure builds bonds quickly.

Love is not the only motive. In a 2025 survey of more than 1,000 American workers by SHRM, 53 percent of people who had been in a workplace romance said love-related reasons were extremely or very important. Another 29 percent pointed to job-related reasons, such as getting ahead at work. In other words, some office relationships are partly about access, protection or promotion.

How Common Are Workplace Romances?

The largest surveys come from the United States. Nigerian data is scarce, but our work with businesses across the country suggests the pattern here is at least as strong.

• SHRM's 2025 research found that more than half of American workers have been in a workplace romance at some point.
• A CareerBuilder survey of more than 7,780 workers found that 38 percent had dated a co-worker, and 18 percent of those had dated their boss.
• Vault's 2016 survey found that 50 percent of respondents had been in a workplace romance, and 16 percent had dated someone senior to them.

Some industries see more of it than others. CareerBuilder measured five industries directly. For other sectors common in Nigeria, we deduced a likely range from the closest measured industry, adjusted for hours, travel and team make-up.

Treat the deduced figures as a guide for planning, since no survey has measured them directly.

Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Relationships

A symmetrical relationship is one between peers. Both people sit at about the same level, and neither controls the other's salary, appraisal, leave or promotion. The risks are real but limited to distraction, gossip, and a team that splits into camps when the relationship ends.

An asymmetrical relationship is one where one person holds power over the other. A manager and a staff member in their unit, or an owner and an employee, fit this description. These relationships hurt businesses most. Every approval the manager gives now looks like a favour, and colleagues stop raising problems. If the relationship ends badly, the junior person may say they never felt free to refuse, and a romance can become a sexual harassment complaint almost overnight.

In SHRM's 2025 research, 68 percent of HR professionals named favouritism as their main concern about workplace romance, and 61 percent named conflicts of interest.

The Cost of Romantic Relationships in Business

In November 2019, McDonald's removed its CEO, Steve Easterbrook, after finding that he had a consensual relationship with an employee, which breached company policy. He left with a package valued at more than $40 million. A later investigation found undisclosed relationships with other employees, and in December 2021, after the company sued, he returned cash and shares worth about $105 million. In 2023, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission also fined him $400,000.

Nigeria has its own example. In 2021, Adam Nuru, then managing director of FCMB, went on leave while the bank looked into allegations about his personal conduct that had become public, and more than a thousand petitioners asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to remove him. The bank's board reportedly found no breach of its policies, and he left the role in July 2021 when Yemisi Edun took over. Whatever the facts, a private matter at the top became a public test of the bank's reputation.

The one you have in your business may be smaller, but the implication may hit harder than you can imagine.

Should You Allow Your Staff To Date Each Other?

Traction Outsourcing's general advice is that businesses should not allow romantic relationships in the workplace.

Some office relationships end well. CareerBuilder found that 31 percent of people who dated a colleague married that person. The problem is that the couple keeps the benefit while the business carries the risk. A large company can move one partner to another city, but the more than 39 million small businesses in Nigeria, with one office and one sales team, cannot move anyone anywhere. So when the relationship ends, the tension stays in the business.

How To Keep Your Business Safe From Relationship Drama

• Put it in your employee handbook. Your handbook should define what the business treats as a romantic relationship, state which relationships are not allowed, explain how disclosure works and list the consequences of breaking the rule. Every staff member should sign it.
• Be clear about what the policy is for. Nobody can stop adults from developing feelings for each other, and a good policy does not try to. The job of the policy is to control what happens when those feelings appear, so the business stays fair, protected, and continues to run.
• Require early disclosure. If your business intends to allow staff to engage in romantic relationships, staff should be required to inform HR, or the manager in charge, if they intend to start a romantic relationship with a colleague. HR can then move one person to a different reporting line, stop both from approving each other's leave, expenses or appraisals, and keep a confidential record.
• Train your managers and staff. Training should explain the policy, the difference between a relationship and harassment, and how to raise a concern safely.
• Apply the rule at the top. A policy that excuses the owner or a favourite manager teaches everyone else that the rule is for small people only.

The Practical Takeaway

Feelings will always find their way into an office. What you control is whether your business has a written answer ready when they do.

Traction Outsourcing Limited helps businesses across Nigeria handle these situations with structure. Our workforce outsourcing and HR consulting service places and manages management staff who respect professional boundaries, and writes the policies that guide them. Our employee training teaches staff and managers how those rules work in practice. Where an owner faces a difficult romantic situation with a staff member, our business advisory team gives confidential, practical guidance. Book a call and let us help you protect your business before the next office story starts.

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