Are Office Relationships Common in Poland? What the Data Shows

Office relationships are common in Poland, even though most Poles disapprove of them. In a survey of 454 Polish employees by the careers site LiveCareer.pl, 26% said they had had at least one intimate relationship with a colleague, and 61% had witnessed a workplace romance. At the same time, 59% were opposed to such relationships. Polish law does not regulate office romance as such: employers cannot ban consensual relationships between adults, but they can manage conflicts of interest and must prevent sexual harassment.

The numbers: LiveCareer survey of Polish employees

Question	Result
Have witnessed a romance at work	61%
Have had at least one relationship with a colleague	26% (men 31%, women 22%)
Oppose workplace relationships	59% (women 68%, men 50%)
Accept them without restrictions	26%
Accept them only between colleagues of equal rank	15%

Source: LiveCareer.pl, “Romanse w miejscu pracy” (2026), 454 respondents, as reported by Wartowiedziec.pl. Online surveys like this are not representative of all Polish workers, so treat the figures as indicative.

Acceptance was highest among people aged 26–39, 49% of whom answered positively.

Where office romances start

Among respondents who had been in a workplace relationship, most began in everyday work, not at parties:

Where it started	Share
Daily work in the same department	64%
Team-building events (imprezy integracyjne)	18%
Business trips	17%
Joint projects	17%
Overtime	12%
Cooperation between departments	11%
Training and conferences	8%

Respondents could give more than one answer. The pattern is consistent with research on attraction: frequent contact and shared pressure bring people closer.

Serious relationships, affairs and side effects

Among those who had a workplace relationship:

• 51% said it became a serious relationship.
• 64% said they were in another relationship at the time, so the romance involved infidelity.
• 35% said it worsened their other relationships at work, for example through gossip or perceived favouritism.

What Polish law says

Poland has no law specifically on workplace relationships, and there is no tradition of American-style “love contracts”. The relevant rules are general:

• Privacy and personal rights. The Polish Constitution protects private life, and the Labour Code obliges employers to respect employees’ dignity and personal rights. An employer cannot forbid consensual relationships between adult employees or punish employees for them as such. Collecting information about employees’ private lives is also limited by data protection rules (GDPR).
• Conflicts of interest. An employer can regulate situations where a relationship affects work, for example by requiring disclosure when one partner supervises the other, decides on their pay or approves their expenses. The usual solution is to change reporting lines, not to discipline the couple.
• Behaviour at work. Employers can act on breaches of work rules, poor performance or unprofessional conduct, whether or not a relationship is involved.
• Harassment and mobbing. The Labour Code prohibits sexual harassment, treated as a form of discrimination, and mobbing (workplace bullying). Employers must prevent both and deal with complaints. A relationship that is not consensual, or that ends and turns into pressure or retaliation, can fall under these rules.

According to research by Praca.pl, about 12% of Polish companies explicitly prohibit workplace relationships in their internal rules, and 68% have no rules on the subject. Policies are more common in international companies that adopt rules from their headquarters, but a blanket ban is hard to enforce under Polish law.

Practical advice

For employees:

1. Check your employer’s code of conduct, especially in an international company. Some require disclosure of relationships within the same reporting line.
2. Avoid reporting to your partner. If it happens, raise it with HR so that one of you can change role or manager.
3. Keep it professional at work. Colleagues notice, and the survey shows that a third of those involved felt it affected their working relationships.
4. Plan for a breakup. You may still have to work together.

For employers and HR:

1. Write a short policy on conflicts of interest and professional conduct, instead of trying to ban relationships.
2. Focus on behaviour, not private life.
3. Make disclosure safe, so that employees report relationships that create conflicts of interest.
4. Train managers on harassment and anti-mobbing procedures, which Polish law requires employers to have in place.

Hiring in Poland? See our Poland market entry guide for employment basics. For the cultural side of relationships in Poland, see our guide to Polish wedding traditions. Our guide to the best cities to live in Poland covers where most office jobs are.

Sources

• LiveCareer.pl, “Romanse w miejscu pracy”, via Wartowiedziec.pl, “Co czwarty pracownik w Polsce miał romans w miejscu pracy” (2026).
• Praca.pl research on company rules on workplace relationships.
• Polish Labour Code (Kodeks pracy): employee dignity and personal rights (Art. 11¹), equal treatment and sexual harassment (Art. 18³ᵃ–18³ᵉ), mobbing (Art. 94³). Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Art. 47 (private life).