Confronting Body Odor Issues

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This leader feeder has something kind of sensitive to talk about, it's personal hygiene and body odor. Nothing freaks out a supervisor or manager more than when they know they have to talk to somebody, or have a conversation about their personal hygiene or body odor. But really most leaders get worked up more than they need to, so I want to go through this and see what can we do to help you become more confident.
First of all, I want you to realize that body odor and personal hygiene for most people isn't something, well nobody likes to talk about it because it's embarrassing, but if you think about it most people who smell bad, or have personal hygiene issues, they're not even self-aware of that. They get so used to it. It's kind of like a houseful of cats might start to smell like cats, but the person that lives there doesn't smell it anymore. It's up to the leader now to, like most things, bring things to the employee's attention. Then that way the employee can hopefully address the situation.
Now I've found that the leader gets really psyched out about this because they feel bad for the person and they don't want to hurt the person's feelings, but often they have other people complaining about not wanting to work next to that person. First of all, many leaders want to just joke about it. I've heard of the whole like put a bar of soap on the employee's desk or in their work area hoping that they get the hint. I just need you to know that that can be more insulting and disrespectful than just having a conversation in private about it. That's going to get somebody upset is if you do something like that, or worse they still don't get the hint and then it continues.
I remember a participant in a workshop I was leading on how to give performance feedback and deliver a performance appraisal. He was getting ready to have this talk with one of the employees who had a personal hygiene body odor issue. The person was really concerned about how that would go, and he was getting worked up about it. I said, "Look, all your job is is to really bring it to the person's attention, and you'll find that they don't get as concerned as you think they will about it." Sure enough, he did do the conversation, and the person while being a bit embarrassed, really appreciated him bringing it to their attention. It ended up being resolved in a positive way.
Now if you think about it, that is probably the most difficult thing is you thinking about having this conversation. It's best if the manager makes a personal observation rather than bringing up that other coworkers have complained. It's not as good to say, "I'm hearing that you stink and nobody wants to work with you." That wouldn't be as effective as, "Hey, I walked by and I really caught a smell of your body odor that I think could be quite difficult for people to work next to you." It's going to come off as more authentic if the leader delivers that information. Now, once you sit down with the person and you let them know that, you say "Hey I've noticed this, it's something I think you need to address," you don't really have to tell them what to do. You don't have to tell them to shower more often, or brush their teeth, or something. What you need to do is bring it to their attention and then ask how could you make this a bit better in terms of your personal hygiene or body odor.
Now just like with any behavior, if after you've had one nice coaching talk where you've brought it to their attention, if it continues, you might actually have to escalate it because again, having a cohesive and cooperative work team is important to the performance in terms of productivity, safety, and quality. You as a front line leader or as a manager, step up and have those difficult conversations. You'll be probably pleasantly surprised that many of them go better than you thought that they would.
Now remember that we come on site and do front line leadership training. It's our specialty to work with supervisors, managers, and team leaders. Or, you can send people to one of our public workshops, or access some of our resources, and our videos, and our distance learning on our website at frontlineleadership.com. And if you're active on social media, reach out to us on Linked In, or also on Facebook at Frontline Leader.