Comments on: Unpolished Problems: How to politely enforce your dresscode

By: Boboccio

Boboccio — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 19:40:38 +0000

HA ha ha. I can just imagine…
“Mr. HR, Mr. HR, Jones has had the same haircut for three days in a row!”
“Have you ever considered that you should fill your day with work? Your workload is hereby doubled.” -me

A fantasy of mine.

By: Evil HR Lady

Evil HR Lady — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 10:18:59 +0000

In reply to Julie. Well, sometimes companies (especially small ones) don't have policies in place for dress and hygiene, and they really are problematic. If your receptionist came in stinking and with her shirt buttons straining, you'd need to speak up, even if there was no policy.

By: Evil HR Lady

Evil HR Lady — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 10:18:03 +0000

In reply to Northern HR. Ummm, is it bad to wear my hair in the same style 3 days in a row? I'm kind of going on about 20 years in a row, and so far no one has complained.

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 04:18:50 +0000

In my opinion if it isn’t breaking the law or policy then the manager complaining is a big baby and needs to be accessed. Waste of time!

By: Northern HR

Northern HR — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 17:46:39 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying this is not just HR’s job! It really is an awful subject to tackle, and I find it worse when I have to speak to an employee as the third-person. If a staff member or manager come to me because Suzy has bad breath, or she has been wearing the same hair style for 3 days in a row (actual complaint!), or that she has BO, or that she is violating dress code… I USED to have to ‘script’ what I would say so that it would not come across as “Suzy, someone tattled on you…”. How uncomfortable Suzy must be to find out that everyone else has complained about her breath! So, once a complaint would come to me, I started finding a reason to spend time around Suzy or her desk and then I would bring it up as though it was only coming from me “and just a heads-up to avoid you being embarrassed…”

But lately, I have tried throwing it back to the complainer’s court. If Suzy has bad breath – did you offer her gum? If you don’t like her hairstyle – does it REALLY effect your job and how you do it? Do you care? Does it matter? She is wearing a pink shirt under her uniform instead of a black one – does it really matter to you and does it effect the quality of her work? (the shirt colours are in our dress code and I will bring this up but it is never something another employee should be concerning themselves with). The BO and basic personal hygiene issues are the ones that are the worst to deal with but I can certainly help a manager with it.