Rasika Tyagi, New Delhi: The trope of the boss as a sexual predator, riding on seduction to reach her ambitious professional goals was used in Hollywood potboiler Disclosure. Even for Hollywood’s fertile imagination, those scenes were unusual – a woman chasing a man out of lust, and the happily married man resists her advances.

However, a new survey conducted across metros on office romances has found that nearly a third of office-goers had no issues with office romances.

Some of the responses touched on morality – “Sleeping around for promotions is unethical", on professional behaviour – "We come here to work, we should work and go home"; and on workplace efficiency – "They won't work properly because their mind is on romance".

The survey has gone on to say that 59 per cent of all office romances are started by women, and most of them with married colleagues.

A third said they saw no harm in romancing a married colleague while 44 per cent felt that an affair was often a strategic move to climb the corporate ladder.

A majority of the respondents – 56 per cent – felt that organisations should not intervene in workplace romances.

An equal proportion also felt that such affairs took their toll on quality and efficiency of work.

When asked for the reason people indulged in affairs with colleagues, the explanation given was that long working hours in close proximity ends up in intimacy.

However, while most office goers agree that long hours spent together spark office romances, they feel that it is unhealthy for the work culture.

The survey covered 402 men and women from leading corporates in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Interestingly, over 72 per cent of the respondents are male.

With inputs from Kajal Iyer