Body odor issues with member of staff

CATS

Hi All,

I hope all you wise people out there can give me your opinions. I am the manager at my work and we currently work in a small office room. Now, recently I have been getting complains from one of my staff about the smell coming from another member of staff. This person really smells I must admit and sometimes the smell can make yr eyes water. Now this poor girl has to sit near this person and says that she can't take the smell. As it is a small office I can't move her anywhere.

The situation is rather sensitive and I am not sure what to do about this. I am not sure if it would be wrong to approach this person and ask them to use more deodorant, shower more, or just ignore the situation.

Any ideas would be great.
Thanks

Daisy70

Unfortunately, as you are the manager, you will need to deal with this situation, you can't ignore it as another member of staff has approached you.

Call the person in and gently explain the situation to them. They'll be mortified but the smell will be no more.

joannaspanner

I would also suggest not simply telling them to apply more deodorant as may be more complex than that ( they don't wear any at all!)

Is the role client facing as if so you could maybe say a visitor or something mentioned it rather than the person she sits next too?

luxor4t

I had to deal with this situation some years back. As the stinker (:o) was male and I am female, I asked a senior male colleague to approach him man-to-man.
He did it from a health point of view ie "we're concerned that you might have health problems because..." That was how I'd have dealt with a female colleague.

After that we were engulfed in Avon aftershave rather than BO.

CATS

at the moment, the complaining has been done informally, over skype messaging. I know that if she wants to really make a complain I will have to deal with it, just not sure how to go about doing so.

Role not client facing as there are other issues apart from odor so can not make them client facing

joannaspanner

whats worse is when they still stink of BO but you get the smell of aftershave mixed in with it.

I feel sorry when you get people with a medical issue that causes it but when you just stink cos you're a filthy pig, I don't understand how you can't smell it yourself.

SailorSam

I use to work with someone who had terrible bad breath and no one would tell him, we use to say you'd think his wife would tell him.
The thing is you don't want to upset the poor girl who smells she's going to feel awful when she realises people are talking about her.
How to sort it ...... i don't know. Try and be sensitive but honest.

SueMaggie

I've had to do this in the past and it was really worried about it, but the person in question took it very well and improved their personal hygiene a lot.

By thinking about how you'd like to be told if it were you, you can probably come up with a way of speaking to the person while saving their feelings.

There may be issues at home you don't know about which means their bathing or clothes washing routine has changed, or they may be ill - so be gentle and try to find out if anything's going on.

I told my member of staff that I was the one who'd noticed the problem on a couple of occasions and wanted to speak to them about it before anyone else noticed it.

In the end they were grateful I'd spoken to them about it as it wasn't something they'd noticed.

cutestkids

I think as manager you will have to bite the bullet and tell the person that they smell.

You will need to be as gentle as possible though rather you than me.

puddy

do you ever find yourself on your own with the person, like over the water machine or in the kitchen or something?

if so, you could question them as to whether theyve been jogging before work or at lunch or something and say, oh just between me and you you've worked up a sweat, or something like that? i know its the cowards way out

Artytarty

Enquire if they are on any medication as certain medicines can alter the bodys smell. That is true, I did not just make it up!I once worked with a young man who had bad arthritis and he asked our manager to tell us that he was aware he smelled "different" ie stronger due to his tablets. He was worried we would think he was just neglecting his personal hygiene.