Managers in relationship

[Flamingo68]

Two managers in same department in a relationship…views on this? One could easily work elsewhere in the organisation, they don’t HAVE to be working together.

I don’t think they should be working in the same team/ department. What do you think?

Unreasonable - Fine for them to be in same team/ department.
Not unreasonable - No, ideally they should not be working closely together.

What’s your objection to it?

I've had 2 managers in a relationship and I really hated it. Felt like I was intruding all the time and the dynamics were all off. They obviously did a lot of team planning at home too.

I don’t see it as an issue as long as work life and personal lives are kept separate. Why should one of them change to a different department if they are happy where they are. Why don’t your agree with it?

Why would it be different to managers being close friends, which would be difficult to deem unreasonable?

My husband and I were in this position when we first started dating. We suggested to our manager that it might be more appropriate if one of us moved reporting line. She fell over herself to get HR to agree that it wasn’t a problem, because she was desperate not to lose any of her team. I do think it caused problems, though. Other people on the team thought we ganged up and always took each other’s side. That wasn’t quite the case, it was more that we started dating because we agreed about so many things, but it was quite difficult.

Thanks for replies. I suppose my issue is that it can impact on team dynamics and potentially bias decisions that are reached - whilst I’d hope that personal feelings were put aside and objective decisions reached, it could still impact. Or at least result in the wider team having this concern. Also, if someone has a concern about one of the managers, then it limits the number of objective people they can comfortably raise this with.

Also to add, they were in a relationship already before one of them joined the department so it isn’t a case of someone having to move out of a role because of a relationship if that makes sense.