Romance between supervisors and subordinates leads to workplace woes

About half of Nevada’s top government agencies do not explicitly prohibit romantic relationships between supervisors and subordinates, despite many employment experts describing such a policy as a best practice.

Even with the #MeToo movement, only four of 11 governments surveyed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal ban supervisor-subordinate dating, and two require notification. Other agencies cited ethics and conflict of interest policies as addressing the issue.

Among those without an explicit policy is Clark County, where former Public Administrator Robert Telles carried on an affair with a subordinate, which according to other employees contributed to an office environment marked by harassment and bullying. Telles was convicted of murdering Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, who at the time of his death in 2022 was reporting on the employees’ complaints, including allegations of the affair.

“It seems to me that it’s an extremely tragic example of the consequences of not being diligent on this issue,” employment law attorney Arthur Kohn, an adjunct professor at New York University, said in an interview.

There are many other examples, he said, where employees’ lives are made miserable by the toxic workplace situations that can result when the boss becomes involved with a staff member.

Of 11 Nevada governmental entities queried, six have policies governing most of their employees that restrict supervisor-subordinate relationships.

Given these figures, “my opinion is they need to do a better job,” said attorney Michael Gebhart, an associate professor teaching employment law at UNLV’s hospitality college.

The Telles case “is a perfect example of why there needs to be more attention given to this,” he said. “Had the county known about the relationship from the onset, could the whole event have been prevented?”

#MeToo

More companies are instituting policies that restrict supervisor-subordinate relationships, from which arise power imbalances and conflicts of interest, Kohn wrote in a post on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Compliance.

Having an anti-fraternization policy sends a message about sexual harassment, mitigates legal risk and avoids certain toxic work environment situations, he wrote in 2020 with colleagues at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Kohn has since retired from the firm.

“As the #MeToo movement has prominently brought to light, a subordinate may not feel comfortable saying ‘no’ to a supervisor, instead acquiescing to the relationship out of fear of adverse employment action,” the post said.

At a minimum, Kohn said, employers should require disclosure of a relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate. This way, management can reassign an employee or monitor the relationship. It also can determine what to communicate to other employees regarding the relationship.

“One of the most toxic things that you can have in a workplace environment is a situation where there’s a fear that a manager is favoring one subordinate over others because they’re having a personal relationship,” Kohn said.

Employees in Telles’ office complained that his relationship with Roberta Lee-Kennett gave her outsized authority and preferential treatment.

Having a policy prohibiting sexual harassment isn’t enough to prevent problems, Gebhart said. Even a consensual relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate can create a hostile work environment for other employees or result in a claim of sexual harassment when the relationship ends.

For these and other reasons, most businesses discourage close personal relationships between supervisors and those they supervise, according to Kohn and Gebhart.

In Nevada, where the hospitality sector is the largest employer, “most hotel-casino brands prohibit managers from dating their direct reports to avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of favoritism,” Gebhart said.

Neither Kohn nor Gebhart saw a reason why the risk in a government setting would be less than in a business environment.

In fact, Gebhart thinks that such a policy is more important for government.

“Could relationships in government agencies lead to corruption, breaches of public trust and waste? Yes,” he said.

Businesses may be more focused on the issue because they’re watching the bottom line, he said.

“Employment law cases can cripple a business if there are multimillion-dollar awards,” he said. “Government spends money. They’re not profit-motivated. They don’t think about the financial ramifications.”

In May, four employees of the Clark County public administrator’s office sued the county and Telles, alleging he created a hostile, retaliatory and discriminatory work environment.

Enforcement challenges

Although there is no explicit Clark County policy prohibiting relationships between supervisors and subordinates, it is implied that such relationships can violate county rules, according to the county.

County policies state that employees are prohibited from activities that “deliberately inhibit or cause difficulties for a team member or supervisor,” or would influence an employee’s ability to act in the best interest of the county or the public.

County spokeswoman Jennifer Cooper noted the difficulty of applying county rules to an elected official such as Telles.

“Elected officials are governed by the Nevada Commission on Ethics and not our Personnel Directives,” she wrote in an email.

Enforcing rules on an elected official could pose a challenge, acknowledged the head of the ethics commission.

“I am not aware of a blanket rule that prohibits a county’s legislative body (the County Commission) from adopting ordinances, policies, or procedures that apply to elected officials as well as appointed staff,” Ross Armstrong, executive director of the ethics commission, wrote in an email, “However, there could be some interesting questions/challenges in relation to enforcement of those rules.”

The ‘con’ side

In addition to Clark County, four other governmental entities also had no explicit policy regarding supervisor-subordinate relationships: Clark County School District, Southern Nevada Water Authority/Las Vegas Valley Water District/Springs Preserve, the Metropolitan Police Department and the city of North Las Vegas.

Bronson Mack, a spokesman for the water agencies, said that their policies on harassment, discrimination and retaliation address “concerns related to this type of relationship.”

North Las Vegas requires training for all employees that addresses “the issues that are inherent to supervisor/subordinate matters, including romantic relationships,” spokesperson Kathleen Richards wrote in an email.

North Las Vegas does have an explicit policy just for its police department. It restricts “intimate or financial relationships between trainers or supervisors and probationary or subordinate employees.”

Metro places restrictions on some of its officers. Field training officers and new officers “will not socialize in an off-duty capacity, become involved in a romantic or dating relationship,” its policy states. “They will not engage in a sexual relationship while in field training.”

In responding to the Review-Journal’s records request, Metro noted that policy does not prohibit supervisors from having sexual relationships with subordinates if the relationship is consensual, other than as already noted.

“We do not want you to conflate consensual sexual relationships with ‘sexual harassment,’” it said.

The cities of Henderson and Reno require disclosing a relationship to management, which then may take action such as reassigning an employee.

Four entities queried explicitly prohibit supervisor-subordinate personal relationships: the city of Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, UNLV, and many departments of Nevada state government. Some state departments have their own human resources departments with possibly different policies, according to the Department of Administration.

Las Vegas’ policy states that employees shall not supervise any employee with whom they are having a romantic or intimate relationship that “may cause the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

The convention authority prohibits close personal relationships, including dating, between supervisors and those they supervise.

UNLV prohibits romantic or sexual relationships between members of the university community when one of the individuals supervises or evaluates the work performance of a member of the faculty or staff.

A state personnel regulation prohibits dating between a supervisor and an employee who is in the direct line of authority of the supervisor.

Kohn and his colleagues also wrote on the “con” side of anti-fraternization policies.

Romantic relationships flourish in the workplace, and management’s attempts to discourage them may seem like encroachment on personal lives, they wrote. Then, too, is the difficulty in defining what constitutes a close personal relationship. And just how does an employer police such a policy?

“These are sensitive issues, people’s personal relationships that they don’t necessarily want to be made public,” Kohn said. “Some people shy away from conflict and tension and may rationalize things as to why it all will be OK.”

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on X. Hynes is a member of the Review-Journal’s investigative team, focusing on reporting that holds leaders and agencies accountable and exposes wrongdoing.