A recent Society for Human Resources Management survey revealed that the number of workplace romance has doubled in the past eight years.
As a result company policies regulating such relationships have increased. In addition, many of these policies have become stricter since 2005 when SHRM conducted a similar survey.
"People tend to look at workplace romance as a kind of fluffy topic, but for organizations, they're taking them more seriously," Evren Esen said. She is a manager of SHRM's Survey Research Center.
"There only has to be one situation of a workplace romance gone bad to convince an HR department to adopt a policy," she added.
Christine Amalfe, an attorney in Gibbons P.C.'s also said that an increasing number of companies have set their own policies because they realize that it is difficult to stop employees from developing romantic relationships with each other. Gibbons is a law office involved in litigation and employment.
"They want to best protect the company from a claim of sexual harassment and ensure there's no favoritism or conflict, which could hurt productivity and impact morale," she added.
One of the most common rule regarding love in the workplace is that love between supervisors and subordinates is not allowed. About 99 percent of surveyed companies implement this ruling. That number is up from 2005 when only about 80 percent of surveyed companies observe it.
So what can you do if you are already caught in a love relationship with your boss or your subordinate?
A good advice is to keep it under the radar, and don't announce it until you are ready to. Just keep it low, especially during the initial stages of your relationship. In that way, you will be able to explore your relationship without worrying about being the talk of the town.
There's nothing wrong with being in a relationship with someone as free as you are. But be sure that he or she is not tied up yet, or your trouble will shoot up to the heights.
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