The stench of an employee's breath can severely impact upon the long-term success of your business empire. Think of this situation—an apprentice with rancid garlic breath stinking out your workplace.
It's not a good look for any business, whether you're a billion pound big earner or just about scrape enough by to pay your lowlife employees minimum wage.
Regardless of your fiscal earnings, you want to ensure bad breath doesn't reflect poorly on your business. In this fresh as a daisy employment law guide, you'll discover the vital details of avoiding professional putrescence.
Bad Breath (halitosis) and Bombastic Business are a Match Made in Hell
The Bad Breath at Work Act 1974 legislates the nature of breath at work, which is supplemented by The Breathing at Work Act 1974.
The latter states in section 45 (v) on page 3,212:
"Employees must be allowed to breathe during working hours, otherwise this will result in death on a 100% basis (unless you are surreptitiously using vampires in your workforce—see The Vampires at Work Act 1974, but do note the illegality of the, aforementioned, vampires)."
So long as you're a vampire-free employer, then ensure your members of staff are indeed breathing as per The Breathing at Work Act 1974.
With that in mind, you can then address The Bad Breath at Work Act 1974. In section 12 (r) on page 432 the Act states:
"Bad breath is breath that smells bad. By definition, 'bad' is something that may make colleagues, managers, clients, customers, or visitors die a little inside upon smelling the, aforementioned, bad breath. The stench may force some customers to flee in a panic. As such, it is good business practice to ensure your employees do not have breath that would make a donkey bray in panic and flee to the other side of his/her field."
Promoting good oral hygiene, and banning smoking at work, are two great ways to start any anti-bad breath initiatives. You can also corner any functioning alcoholics and tell them to sort their shit out as the smell is annoying you and everyone else.
We'll get into the nitty gritty of prevention methods further below.
For now, we'll focus on the myriad reasons for a staff member turning up whilst reeking horribly from the hole in their face.
The Causes of Bad Breath at Work
There are many underlying causes of halitosis (foul-smelling breathers) in the workplace. Reasons can include, but aren't limited to:
- Smoking
- Drinking too much alcohol (i.e. alcholism)
- Gut rot
- Being too stupid and/or lazy to brush their teeth
- Being too stupid and/or lazy to add mouthwash to their dental routine
- Acid reflux
- Eating nothing but raw onions
- Eating nothing but raw garlic
- Eating nothing but raw onions and garlic
- Eating nothing but instant noodles
What your employees do in their spare time is, sadly, their business down to the nature of free will and capitalism not promoting an entirely totalitarian regime.
If they wish to indulge in a diet that promotes horrific bad breath, that's the nature of freedom with a market-based society. However, there's nothing stopping you from cornering them about it if your profits are falling due to their love of onions.
How to Politely Inform an Employee Their Breath Smells Like a Pair of Smelly Socks Left to Rot in a Cow Pat
Here's an example case study of an anonymous employee with foul-smelling mouth hole issues.
Frank from accounts had a diet of beer, raw onions, garlic bread, and he had a nasty case of daily acid reflux, too. Talking to him was like wandering into an open sewer populated by malodorous hippies and tramps.
It was disgusting. He was disgusting. His boss and everyone else (i.e. colleagues) was (and were) disgusted.
One day at work, Frank's boss had had enough. Grabbing him by the shirt collar and aggressively shoving him against a wall, the boss bellowed into Frank's face that his breath was so repugnant no one could get any work done. The boss demanded Frank sort his dental hygiene out IMMEDIATELY.
To the boss' eternal horror, Frank countered by pushing a workplace harassment claim. He complemented that by indicating the boss' bad breath (driven by a cheap coffee and tobacco habit) was even worse than his was!
At an employment tribunal, which included bad breath tests carried out by bad breath experts, Frank won the case.
The business was ordered to pay Frank £13 million in damages. Subsequently, the business went bankrupt and the boss ended up working for a construction company shovelling gravel from one pit into another pit. All because of his and Frank's bad breath.
Business Bad Breath Prevention Techniques for a Minty Fresh Future of Success and Market Domination
The best way to avoid bad breath at work is to ensure you don't hire anyone with bad breath. During the recruitment phase, ask job candidates deeply personal questions such as:
- Does your diet consist of regular onion and garlic consumption?
- Do you use a toothpaste and mouthwash combination strong enough to murder even the worst of bacteria?
- Do you have bad breath?
If you hire someone but then, at some stage in their employment run with you they develop bad breath, then you should sack the person immediately.
Taking that action may seem drastic. That's because it is. And it also breaches various employment laws, which could result in a costly employment tribunal.
As such, maybe don't just sack them immediately. We guess we were a bit hasty in our assessment there.
However, we just feel a sense of burning rage whenever some... ARSEHEAD turns up work breathing putrid smelling air all over us when we're trying to do a top job. It's not on! Truly, the whole matter makes us quite emotional.
As such, we advise your business have an on-the-door tooth brushing and mouthwash usage before entering the premises. This way, you can ensure there's that weird minty smell in the air.
That'll be particularly handy if someone has turned up drunk again, as masking the stench will make your business look more professional than it probably is.
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