Wellness Gaps

Workplace Hygiene Policy: Personal Hygiene Guidelines for Employees

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Workplace Hygiene Policy: Personal Hygiene Guidelines for Employees

Imagine that you are an office manager overseeing a department of 25 employees.

One day, an employees comes to you and complains about his co-worker's body odor.

How will you tackle these kinds of complaints in your office?

For a professional HR manager, that’s an important question to ask himself.

These types of hygiene issues happen a lot in overcrowded offices. That happens because these workplace don't have a policy to manage this issue.

Without a workplace hygiene policy it's difficult to have employees clean after themselves.

Things are different when having a workplace hygiene policy. Every employee would practice good personal hygiene as mentioned in the company guidelines. And the ones who don't, would be easy to give them notices referring them to the hygiene office rules.  

The question is which rules should that policy include?

Read below.

Elements of a workplace hygiene policy

An effective workplace hygiene policy include physical appearance guidelines for employees. These guidelines include such aspects as:

1. Personal hygiene guidelines:

All employees are expected to follow proper hygiene in the workplace rules.

  • bath daily to maintain your body  fresh and clean. 
  • brush your teeth. 
  • use a deodorant or an antiperspirant to prevent releasing unpleasant body odors.
  • don't use scented perfumes, colognes, and lotions. These can cause allergic reactions, migraines and respiratory difficulty for some employees. 
  • trim your nails and maintain them clean. 
  • wash your hands.

2. Dress code and uniform guidelines:

The staff that has regular in-person contact with the clients is required to wear appropriate business attire.

  • men - should dress shoes, jackets, shirts, ties, slacks, sweaters.
  • women - should dress tops, pants, dresses, skirts, sweaters, pant-suites, shoes/sandals.
  • employees that are not in direct contact with the client are allowed to wear business casual attire.
  • sales employees are encouraged to wear company-branded or colored shirts.

3. Grooming and facial hair guidelines:

  • clothing must be clean, pressed, in good condition, and should fit appropriately.
  • maintain neat and well-groomed facial hair like mustaches, sideburns, and beards. (no artificial colors e.g. pink, green, etc. that is deemed unprofessional).
  • wear moderate make-up
  • tattoos that are perceived as offensive, hostile or that diminishes the employee's professionalism must be covered so that they are not visible to staff or customers.

Related:

4. Cleanliness guidelines

  • employees must clean after themselves after using the restroom. 
  • employees must maintain their workstation clean and uncluttered.
  • employees must maintain the cleanliness in the kitchen.

Over to you

Once everybody in the office follows the guidelines mentioned in the workplace hygiene policy, it’ll be much easier to handle personal hygiene issues in the office. Because, in this case, you can refer the personal hygiene issue of the employee to the company's hygiene rules.