Tough Topics: Talking to Employees About Personal Hygiene

As a manager, you’re probably used to dealing with tough situations: employees who insist on being late, team members who miss deadlines, and staff members who can’t get along. But conversations about an employee’s personal appearance are a whole different ball game. It’s something that we often avoid talking about, or worse, make light of. This has two major themes. First, we’ll give you a framework for having those tough conversations. We’ll also give you some guidelines for customizing that framework for your organization. Then, we’ll look at some common tough conversations that come up, including body odor, flatulence, poor clothing and hair decisions, and bad breath. At the end of the workshop participants will have a chance to role play a tough situation. You’ll walk away well prepared for any kind of challenging conversation. This course will help you know how to:

• Identify the advantages to having tough conversations
• Describe the components to an effective behavior modification conversation
• Use your organization’s resources to help you deal with hygiene issues
• Overcome barriers that employees put up when discussing hygiene problems
• Resolve hygiene issues such as bad hair days, inappropriate piercings and body art, poor clothing choices, bad breath, body odor, excessive gas, and incontinence
• Nip poor hygiene habits in the bud
• Identify ways to encourage good hygiene at your workplace