Office dating? Here’s how to handle romance at work – from HR rules to red flags – without risking your job or dignity

A viral video showing the CEO of Astronomer canoodling with his head of HR at a Coldplay gig last week was a comms nightmare, but it was hardly a shocking matter of affairs. After all, whether they should or shouldn’t, office workers have been flirting around the water cooler since the dawn of the cubicle, but there is a knack to it. To ensure you don’t end up on any kisscams at normcore gigs, here’s our handy how-to guide to office dating.

1. Stop, look, listen, think

You do it when you cross the road, so do it before you flirt with a colleague: the stats are not readily available, but the accident rate is certainly not pretty, so think long and hard before you get yourself entangled in an office romance.

Finding your colleague attractive is understandable, but is it advisable? One good question to ask yourself before diving in is: would you fancy this person outside of the workplace? An overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence suggests not, with the phenomenon even recently gaining its own theorem: ‘office hot’. “Someone you might not look twice at on the street suddenly becomes hugely attractive,” Annabelle Knight, sex and relationships expert at Lovehoney, explains. “You’re spending long hours together, navigating challenges as a team, and often seeing people at their most competent and confident, which can be a real turn-on.”

But think with your head! While 60 per cent of adults have had a workplace romance, over 50 per cent of lovers reported being the victim of increased workplace gossip as a result, according to a 2024 survey by Forbes, while successive scandals at the likes of BP,........

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