Labor / Employment, On The Job

The Friend Zone And Sexual Harassment

Be mindful of the fact that you must remain professional with coworkers who have become your friends.

By  
on

Most people have heard the term “friend zone” used in the dating context. In case you’ve never heard the phrase, it refers to the state of successfully becoming your romantic interest’s friend instead of his or her boyfriend/girlfriend. You can usually identify as being in the friend zone when your romantic interest tells you that “you’re such a great friend.”

There is, however, another friend zone that people aren’t usually as aware of. It’s the friend zone between coworkers. It’s when the relationship between coworkers goes from mostly professional to a greater mix of personal than professional. It’s when coworkers come to see their peers as personal friends and not just as people they work with. We’ve all developed friendships with our coworkers and generally it’s not a problem.

But it might surprise you that this workplace friend zone is also a relatively common thing in a lot of sexual harassment cases and internal investigations employment lawyers deal with. Here’s how the scenario might play out.

John Smith and Jane Doe work next to one another every day. John and Jane talk more and more about their lives outside of work as time goes on. They eventually come to regard each other as friends. One day, Jane comments on how nice John’s new jeans look. Another day, Jane lightly slaps John on his butt when he walks by and tells him he’s “lookin’ good.” The next week, Jane mentions how she thinks John looks like he’s been working out. This sort of thing continues for a while. John doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to jeopardize his friendship with Jane and so the conduct continues.

In this simplistic scenario, Jane was genuinely just being friendly. She wasn’t hitting on John. (That’s not always the case, of course, but it is in this hypothetical.) She was just being her normal self that she is when she’s outside of work.

John perceived it differently. He saw his friendship with Jane evolve into Jane taking a romantic interest in him and making him uncomfortable at work. What eventually happens in these scenarios sometimes is that one party finally becomes too uncomfortable (through a prolonged period of this activity or a particularly severe incident, like unwelcome touching — or both) and reports it to management or human resources. The incident is then investigated as a sexual harassment matter and could even result in a lawsuit.

This is obviously when we have a problem. Issues stemming from the friend zone usually begin innocuously and evolve over a significant period of time, and so they’re often harder to spot early on. With that in mind, I came up with three things that I think folks should keep in mind when dealing with people in their own friend zones at work.

Sponsored

Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t be friends with people at work. The issue I’m trying to highlight is that some people tend to overshare and bring too much of their personal lives into work in ways that might be (or may become) unwelcome to others. The points below merely highlight things I think can help us avoid engaging in or being subjected to potentially problematic behavior.

  1. Beware of connecting on social media.

I’ll confess that although I have a LinkedIn account, I don’t have an account with Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram. (On a side note: I used to have Facebook and deactivated my account about a year and half ago. It’s been life-changing, in a good way.) I understand, however, that people seemingly have no filters when using social media these days. People post all sorts of extremely personal and often inappropriate material on their pages. Connecting with someone on social media can really open the floodgates to knowing way more about someone than you ever wanted.

Whenever I give training programs to employees and managers, I always discourage connecting with co-workers on social media (the exception generally being LinkedIn, since people still seem to keep it almost entirely professional on that platform). I think this protects coworkers from learning too much private information about one another and can prevent some workplace harassment issues from occurring.

  1. Beware of texting or instant messaging with coworkers.

Sponsored

I don’t know much about psychology, but I can tell you this: When people communicate via text message or instant messaging, their communications become less formal. Many times this results in people oversharing or making comments they wouldn’t otherwise make either in person or via email, which can lead to a lot of issues. (Remember: Even if harassing conduct occurs between coworkers outside the workplace or on a non-workplace device like a personal cellphone, the conduct can still constitute harassment in violation of state and federal laws.)

I recommend that coworkers (and especially supervisors and managers) generally try to keep their communications to the telephone, face-to-face, and via company email. I believe this prevents the relationship from becoming too informal.

  1. Beware of hanging out together outside of work.

Hanging out with coworkers outside of the workplace and workplace functions like happy hours opens the door to opportunities for words and actions that might go too far, especially when alcohol is involved. People usually feel like since they’re no longer at work they don’t have to abide by work rules even though they’re with a coworker. Obviously, this creates a lot of opportunity for potentially improper conduct.

Conclusion

I want to be clear (again) that I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t have friends at work. We spend so much time at work that I think it’d be a miserable existence to not have people there that we feel somewhat connected with. I’m simply highlighting that we have to be mindful of the fact that we still need to remain professional in our interactions with those who have wound up in our respective friend zones.

evan-gibbsEvan Gibbs is an attorney at Troutman Sanders, where he primarily litigates employment cases and handles traditional labor matters. Connect with him on LinkedIn here, or e-mail him here. (The views expressed in this column are his own.)

Topics

, , , , ,