When Valentine’s day arrives in your workplace, you’ll need policies in place to ensure your employees don’t end up in a mass orgy. This is bad for productivity.

As such, you’ll need to outline in your company handbook what your rules and regulations are regarding romance, romantic gestures, and flirtatious leering.

Workplace Romances: The Policies You Need

Valentine’s day is often the least productive day of the year for many businesses.

This is because employees abandon their duties in the name of pursuing love (or simply yelling remarks at colleagues they find attractive).

You must come down like a tonne of bricks on these bastards.

Do not tolerate flirting in the workplace. Nor romance. Work is a place to work. Not lay out complex life plans, such as marriages, babies, and inevitable divorces.

In fact, in The Flirting in the Workplace Act 1974, official government guidance states:

“Flirting at work is one of the most dangerous pastimes known to man. In 1972, there were 300 recorded deaths at work due to remarks such as, ‘Oi, oi, darlin’, you’re a bit of all right, eh?’

Subsequent loss of attention resulted in accidents such as:

a) Dismemberment.

b) Beheadings.

c) Paper cuts becoming infected.

d) Driving a truck off a bridge and into a furnace.

It is highly recommended businesses ban all romantic asides and/or flirting at work to avoid workplace fatalities. As you might have to pay compensation for that.

As you can see, this issue is of the utmost importance. A simple cheeky wink could result in a workplace decapitation.

To protect your employees from certain death, and your business from costly employment tribunals, instigate the following policy.

Creating Your Flirting at Work Policy

This must establish just how much you loathe any sort of romantic shenanigans or flirting in your workplace—be it in the office, on a construction site, or in a sewer.

Address your stance on the issue with no-nonsense language that gets straight to the point. Highlight the following:

• You don’t allow flirting at work and anyone caught doing so will have a £10,000 pay deduction instantaneously.
• Romantic liaisons are banned and it doesn’t matter if you’re “in love” or any of that nauseating garbage, you’ll both be fired on the spot.
• Anyone found canoodling on the company premises will be fired at with the company bazooka.
• Stoic indifference is the attitude you must adopt for all of your colleagues—especially on Valentine’s day.
• Keep pleasant remarks to colleagues at a minimum, should these be mistaken for casual flirting.

You should encourage all of your employees to report any colleagues who may/may not have flirted with them. Flirtatious actions can include:

• Holding a door open for someone carrying a box of photocopied documents.
• Saying “Good morning!” in anything other than a flat, monotonous voice.
• Introducing themselves to a new starter in a way that doesn’t imply they think they’re a vile scumbag.
• Chatting around a water cooler.
• Agreeing to join each other for lunch.

Lunch breaks pose the single greatest threat to your business’ inner harmony.

As such, we suggest you cordon off singular areas of your working environment. Then force staff to take their lunch breaks, one by one, in secluded areas.

What To Do If You Find a Valentine’s Day Card at Work

In the disastrous event you unearth a romantic card from one colleague to another, attempt to restrain your inner desire to panic insanely.

If you’re unable to do so, it’s good business practice to end all proceedings for the day and send everybody home.

A Valentine’s day card may include a written romantic aside such as:

“Hey sweet cheeks. There’s nothing cooler than a water cooler, except you lol. Add me on Snapchat and I’ll send you a picture of me before male pattern balding and middle-aged weight gain made me unpalatable from a dating perspective.”

That is flirting. Your best course of action is to try and determine which individual sent the card. Look for clues—from the above, facts include:

• Its initiator is bald/balding.
• Its initiator is middle-aged.
• Its initiator is podgy.
• Its initiator appears to have insecurity issues they’re passing off as a keen sense of humour.

Based off the above empirical evidence, locate your office clown and fire them immediately. If you don’t have an office clown, simply fire anyone who’s bald or balding.

Although that’s discrimination under The Equality Act 2010, it’s better to face another employment tribunal than run the risk of employees exchanging cards.

Remember—lives are at stake here.

Ensure you vigorously enforce your anti-flirting policy to avoid incidents such as colleagues winking at each other, then accidentally plunging down a stairwell.