Personal Hygiene issues

onvoy

We have had problems with personal hygiene over the last few years. What I mean by personal hygiene is two-fold. One, we have a few employees that have body odor pretty bad. The supervisors have spoken to these employees not to criticize but to bring it to their attention. For the most part, those issues have been resolved. However, we do have 2 employees who are still emitting the offensive smell. I have had supervisors who want HR to hold some sort of Personal Hygiene training/awareness session. We have contacted a Clinic who looked into a program for us. They are now telling us they cannot give a presentation without us having a policy on personal hygiene. So here is my questions:

Do any of you have such a policy at your company? We are a manufacturing company.

What have your companies done in similar circumstances to alleviate or eliminate this problem? Like I said, we have had discussions with the specific employees.

The other situation we have from time to time is in our restrooms. We have employees, not sure who they are, that deficate on the floor or have even smeared the waste on the stall walls, or do not throw the used TP in the toilet, or even used feminine products. This does not happen every week, but every so often. We have posted cleanliness signs everywhere and signs pointing
out they should respect each other, etc.

Any help in the above areas would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

mrbill

Interesting in that I dealt with this issue just this week. Our approach always has been that we will let our plant nurse (female)deal with the Ladies. If it is a male, then I, as the Personnel Director, will deal with it. Initially, I talk to the person alone. Normally, this is the end of the matter. If I have to raise the bar, I will do so, but still in a low-key way. Interesting in that we have had some culture issues in the use of the bathroom from our Asian population. Evidently they "do not sit".
As far as my particular situation this week, it involved a male, who I had spoken to in the past 3X, and I last told him (October, 2002) that next complaint, he is going home. I did have a direct complaint, spoke to him, with his supervisor, and sternly told him to go home, bath, change his clothes, and come back to work. He complied with all of the instructions. As a final comment, all of the meetings were done in a low key, quiet manner.

hrbanker

Our policy is: All employees are expected to maintain high standards of personal appearance and hygiene regardless of where they work. After-hours and work not involving public or customer contact may require less emphasis on style of dress.

Any employee whose personal appearance or hygiene is unacceptable to the bank's general standards will be informed of this and the problem must be corrected immediately. Failure to correct the problem may result in transfer to another department or dismissal.

...Good luck with this one. It sounds like you might have an angry employee smearing feces on the walls.

Our problem is getting women to discard feminine products in the waste can instead of flushing them down our antiquated system. Our maintenance dept sure earns their pay, as they have to clean out the pipes every three or four months.

Margaret Morford

I would not drag everybody through a personal hygiene session simply because you have a few who will not address the issue. I also would not issue a policy. I would talk with each one again. Suggest that they go to a doctor to see if they have some sort of medical problem. Also tell them that if you have to speak to them again about it, you will be forced to issue them corrective action and send them home to bath and dress again. If the problem continues, issue them corrective action for "Poor Hygiene," noting that you've spoken with them on at least two other occasions.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]