Why Workplace Cheating Happens
One of the hottest trends in business today, is an employee friendly environment. From large corporations to small businesses, everybody agrees that giving employees a more inviting place to work, will yield a better bottom line. On paper this really makes a great deal of sense, especially when employees are often asked to work over time, and expected to take on a lot more responsibility, for a lot less pay.
Sometimes ideas on how to make the work environment more comfortable comes directly from the employees themselves. Number one on everybody’s wish list are financial incentives, in the form of pay raises or bonuses. Unfortunately, a lot of business are not willing, or able to grant that wish, so they opt for giving employee perks that don’t cost them anything. More casual dress days, unconventional schedules, and lunch time potlucks are popular. The problem with these seemingly harmless privileges is that they can be loosely defined. If the employer is unprepared to structure these activities they can become less than professional and result in more opportunity for employees to get to know each other on a whole new level.
It is a lot easier to behave in a more casual way when you are in a casual atmosphere. The employees who used to work nine to five along with the administrative personal, are now coming in later, and working until eight or nine, supervised only by the management support staff. Management support is usually made up newly promoted regular employees, who are being paid the same amount as before the promotion, but doing a lot more work. What this means for employees who work the new hours, is that they are supervising themselves. It also means that the new manager may be unprepared to enforce professional behavior.
When female employees wear lower cut tops or tight tee shirts, and shorter skirts, they can suddenly appear totally different to their male co-workers than they did in business attire. The lines of professionalism get blurry to those that may be tempted to cross them anyway. Add to the fact that the office is still open after it gets dark outside, and administrative staff have gone home for the day, and a recipe for an office fling is born.
As it is, the average working adult, spends more time interacting with co-workers, than their family members. For people who work in cubicles or in small offices spaces, the distance between any two people is very small. That is eight hours, or more, a day sitting next to the same person. Since we are all only human it is likely, that at some time during the course of the week, some personal information gets shared, or over heard. At the very least there is communication during lunch time and breaks. People get to know each other, and may grow to like each other. Even when one or both parties involved are married, there is intimacy, on some level happening. Because these people spend so much of their waking hours together, it is very natural for them to see each other like a second family. For people who have office flings, they admit to feeling like they had been dating before becoming physically involved. Some actually compare their work day to an eight hour date. Surprisingly these relationships can encourage increased productivity, and better attendance, making employers more likely to turn the other way.