Two of my employees are in a relationship and it’s causing problems. What can I do?

The answer Just Ask, HR gives

Positive Pam — Upbeat and solution-focused — finds the workable deal.

Let's start with what you can't do, so we can get to the useful part: you can't ban workplace relationships, and trying tends to be both unenforceable and counterproductive (privacy rights, plus relationships simply go underground). Around one in five people meet their partner through work — this is a management situation, not a scandal.

What you can — and should — manage is the structural problem, which in your case is real and specific: one of them manages the other. That's not gossip, that's a genuine conflict of interest touching shift allocation, appraisal, pay and discipline. Even if the team leader is being scrupulously fair, fairness now can't be seen, and that perception is corroding the team.

Your practical plan:

• Have the professional conversation — private, warm, matter-of-fact: "You're both valued; nobody's in trouble; we need to fix the reporting line so neither of you is compromised." Most couples are relieved someone named it.
• Break the management line. Move one of them to a different reporting line, or reassign the people-decisions (shifts, appraisals, any disciplinary matters) affecting the partner to another manager — the minimum effective intervention in a small business.
• Deal with the conduct, not the relationship. The stockroom argument gets addressed exactly as it would between any two colleagues: professional standards at work, whoever you are to each other.
• Answer the favouritism perception with transparency: visible criteria for shift allocation help everyone, not just this case.
• Write a short personal-relationships policy for the future: disclosure of relationships where one party manages the other, and a commitment to adjust reporting lines without penalty. Disclosure-of-conflict policies are enforceable where blanket bans aren't.

Handled early and openly, this usually lands well — the couple keeps their dignity, the team sees fairness restored, and you gain a policy. The only losing move is pretending you haven't noticed.