Technology makes office romance easier, and firms fret

But if one of the parties is a manager or someone else with disproportionate power? Well, then the trend is moving in the other direction.

Reports show that more companies are instituting policies about workplace romance. In a 2013 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 42 percent of the 380 HR professionals canvassed said they have written or verbal policies in place - a figure that has more than doubled since 2005.

And that may even be a conservative estimate. In a survey released last week by the Employment Law Alliance, 72 percent of the attorneys who responded said their corporate clients address office relationships in policies or employee handbooks. Meanwhile, Garry Mathiason, a senior partner with the global employment law firm Littler Mendelson, says the prevalence of office romance policies among his firm's clients is likely over 90 percent. "The real issue is what the policy says," Mathiason noted.

According to the SHRM study, more policies are forbidding relationships between managers and subordinates. In 2001, just 64 percent of HR folks with fraternization policies said that boss-employee relationships were not allowed. By 2013, it was 99 percent.

"It leads into the possibility of discrimination and appearance of favoritism," said Lisa Orndorff, the society's manager of employee relations and engagement. "Even if a supervisor is cleaner than a whistle, there could still be that perception."

According to the survey, one in four employees said they have or have had a romantic relationship at work.

Unsurprisingly, fear of being sued is the big reason companies are laying down the law on liaisons between managers and employees. Big sexual harassment awards over the past decade have more companies running scared. While the number of cases has declined, "blockbuster jury verdicts" have caught companies' attention, says Robin Shea, a partner at the law firm Constangy, Brooks & Smith in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"The ones that have come out are pretty alarming," Shea said. In 2011, for instance, a jury ordered UBS Financial Services to pay more than $10 million in a sexual harassment case.

Other factors have an effect, too. In an age of social media and round-the-clock access to technology, it can be easier for the boss to find out about your workplace romance. Technology also makes it easier to start that relationship.

In a recent survey by the Employment Law Alliance, 81 percent of employment lawyers said technology had a moderate to major impact on personal office relationships. Long gone, after all, are the days when employees had to find a colleague's home number to contact them after hours. Now it's easy to text and email co-workers late at night after you've had a few drinks, or to befriend each other on Facebook only to realize you like the same teams and TV shows.

"On Facebook, I might see pictures of you on the beach in a bathing suit and think you're attractive," said Sean Horan, an assistant professor in communications at Texas State University. "Technology is a medium that reduces uncertainty. And technology has certainly not hurt workplace romance."

As a result, more employers realize that while they may try to prevent relationships that could lead to legal concerns, they also don't have the level of control they once did, says Adam Gersh, an employment lawyer at Flaster/Greenberg in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. "Every policy is going to have unintended consequences," he said. "It's about trying to manage those unintended consequences so that you're getting some of the defensive protective measures you want without driving away your talent."

That's why employment lawyers say blanket policies against workplace dating are not as common. Not only are absolute bans nearly impossible to enforce, says Clarence Belnavis, a partner at Fisher & Phillips, but they can put companies in the position of having to police dating between - and therefore make tough decisions on - two talented peers.

"I have clients who come to me and say our talent pool is narrow, or we're unique in what we do, and people are just going to date in the workplace," Belnavis said. "What I don't need is an archaic policy that bans it all. They used to be fairly formal and rigid, now they're more relaxed."