A reader writes:
I’m the assistant supervisor of a office the place my companion additionally works. In actual fact, we met there — once I began working right here, we had been each in the identical customer-facing position, and a couple of 12 months in the past I received the assistant supervisor position. We’ve to this point made this work, though it has been difficult at occasions. Our office is comparatively casual; I handle his staff however I don’t should line handle him, and the chief supervisor steps in the place applicable.
Nevertheless, I’ve simply been informed we’re resulting from make a wave of cuts to jobs (sadly following a sector-wide development). My job is secure; my companion’s job, and people of his staff, will not be. He received’t discover out about this formally for an additional two months.
My supervisor and the senior staff have requested me to not inform him earlier than then. I really feel torn. On a private stage, I don’t wish to deceive him. Nevertheless it’s additionally unfair and will get difficult if he is aware of earlier than the opposite workers. Like many of the staff I think about he’ll really feel very strongly about it and is prone to wish to attempt to battle in opposition to these cuts (e.g., via our union). However I might face disciplinary motion if it will get out that I informed him earlier than anybody else.
For context, he’s at the moment searching for different jobs anyway, partly so we don’t should work collectively however for different causes too. However whereas he stays right here I can’t see a approach ahead that doesn’t severely jeopardize both my job or my relationship!
At the start, your organization by no means ought to have put you in a job managing your companion’s staff. It’s not sufficient to circuitously line-manage him; you shouldn’t be a part of his chain of command in any respect. That’s unfair to you, him, your colleagues, and your employer — they by no means ought to have allowed it. Along with it being an apparent battle of curiosity — to not point out the issue it’s inflicting you now — it raises all types of points for different individuals who could wish to, for instance, convey you an issue together with your companion however received’t really feel snug doing that due to the non-public relationship.
However that doesn’t allow you to now.
It’s not affordable so that you can be put ready the place your companion will lose his job in two months however aren’t allowed to share that with him. You don’t say in case you’re married or stay collectively, however in case you are, it’s much more unreasonable; you will have details about your family’s funds which you could’t talk about or act on. And that’s earlier than we even get into the emotional aspect of this: most individuals in your companion’s footwear would really feel betrayed in the event that they discovered you’d recognized to this point prematurely and never informed them. He’s prone to really feel you prioritized your personal skilled safety above him and above your relationship, and it might have actual and lasting results on his belief in you. That’s not a sacrifice your employer ought to count on of you. (Which is but another excuse why they shouldn’t have put you ready over him to start with.)
I solely see two moral choices:
1. You share the data together with your companion however make it very clear that your organization can’t discover out that you simply informed him. Which means he can’t react to it the way in which he’s going to wish to, and also you’d must belief him to stick to that. (For the file, he ought to adhere to that; he ought to acknowledge that he’s solely aware about the data due to his relationship with you, and that you simply doing the appropriate factor throughout the context of your relationship doesn’t entitle him to hazard you professionally. If you happen to can’t belief him to deal with that appropriately, there’s a unique drawback.)
2. You inform your organization that you simply’re in an untenable state of affairs and also you want to have the ability to disclose it to your companion, and also you collaborate with them to determine the way to proceed inside these constraints. I don’t love this — as a result of whenever you agreed to take this job you had been agreeing to the confidentiality expectations that come together with it — however right here you might be and it’s a set-up they blessed, and there’s a restrict to how a lot you could be anticipated to guard the corporate’s pursuits above your personal.
#2 is the most suitable choice because it means that you can be trustworthy with each side, however whether or not or not it’s possible is dependent upon what of your organization’s management.