To not speak to my team member who is spraying perfume in work bathroom?

[Fedupcolleague]

I manage a small team, unfortunately there’s a couple of them who despite being grown adults always seem to find various child like gripes which they ask me to get involved in sorting.

The latest one is today. In one of my teams 1:1’s they said they have witnessed a named colleague spraying perfume in the air in the bathroom whenever they have been to the loo. They say they are uncomfortable raising this themselves and asked that I speak to them and make clear it was an anonymous comment to me.

I find this ridiculous and haven’t committed to mentioning it. Would I be unreasonable to tell her I won’t be saying anything?

Agree.

Perfume sprayed in a room without windows? Be glad you don't have asthma. I'd really struggle.

You need management training.

This is one of those annoying things that you are actually paid to sort out.

It is not fair to ask your colleague to address her colleague about it. This is a workplace issue that she has asked her manager to deal with. Telling her to sort it out herself is encouraging conflict in your team and you are not supporting your staff.

It may be trivial but massive resentments grow out of trivial things and disrupt teams and workplaces. Just deal with it.

If she has asthma or similar that might be a reason to mention it and remove the air freshener.

Cheap perfume/aftershave triggers asthma like symptoms for both myself & DH. To us they all smell like fly spray. I’d be very unhappy if someone was randomly spraying perfume in an enclosed space. But I’d have no problem speaking to the sprayer myself.

I’d be inclined not to do anything OP. Not really sure why everyone is talking about their asthma allergies and migraines being triggered by perfume when you’ve specifically asked her and she hasn’t disclosed anything and no I don’t think “it gets on my lungs” is disclosing a health condition.

If you feel you have to do something have a quiet word with perfume sprayer and say you’ve had a complaint by someone about perfume spraying in the loo so would she mind not doing it. I definitely wouldn’t send a team email - that’s a complete cop out.

Have to say I manage and I accept I get paid to manage (although not much) and therefore have to do things like have difficult conversations and motivate people and find a home for work that no one wants to do etc I do however despair sometimes at people’s inability to have a grown up 3 second conversation with a colleague along the lines of - oh sorry Jane would you mind not spraying that in here it gets on my lungs - instead of default complaining to management about everything.

Some cheap perfumes quite literally make me want to vomit. It's a problem for me on public transport when women spray themselves when applying makeup. I imagine the individual who is unhappy may be like me.

There are plenty of people whose sense of smell is much more sensitive than others (and strong synthetic smells like perfume are one of the hardest to deal with).

It can be so frustrating when people who are less sensitive in this regard behave as if we are making a big fuss over nothing (because if it doesn't bother them then why would it bother someone else?).

You'll be the best judge of whether or not the complainant has form for being unreasonable in other areas, and if they don't, then you might want to work on developing your awareness, tolerance, and understanding.

The Equality Act 2010 defines disability and generally allergies as described here don’t fit the definition unless they are long term and have a significant impact on daily life. So something that causes mild discomfort, and only if a particular substance is used around you, wouldn’t meet the definition. It would have to cause something debilitating like an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts for example. Hay fever and similar, milder allergies are outside the scope of the Act.

My comment wasn’t about HSE though - that covers health ad safety at work, not disability discrimination. That’s covered by the Equality Act, and unless the problem is caused by a disability which meets the definition of disability under the Act, it isn’t appropriate. And the fact is that these kinds of allergies are not defined as disablities unless they have a significant and long term effect on the sufferer - something like an anaphylactic reaction. I agree that the simplest solution is a mass email asking people to be considerate if it causes discomfort - l was just pointing out that a complaint under the EA likely wouldn’t be appropriate.

Why do people look to legislation to resolve something they find unpleasant or stressful? That’s not a mature approach to life. H&S and EQ laws are there to hold companies to account for threats and inequalities, not to help someone with a coughing fit eliminate the source (and what does that even mean? They’re going to instruct a solicitor and sue their employer?!)

Or it could be triggering migraines

It's not primary school! Why should you even have to TELL someone to put their bloody shoes back on?

Your manager will NOT save any embarrassment by marching to someone's desk and telling them: put your bloody shoes on, where do you think you are 😂

One email means the information is sent and addressed to ALL. If one ignores it, after receiving an email, then you can take action and they can't even play the idiot "but I didn't know" card.

I think people who say “manager’s job” etc don’t really stop to think about the problem of “telling off” in the wider context of adult life. it’s a brilliant example of corporate compliance/parent- child school type behaviour.

so for example the only person I’ve known to go shoeless in the office in my 25 career is… the CEO. Who was supposed to tell him off?

Exactly this. The Equality Act was quoted upthread as a possible route of complaint if OP does nothing, completely overlooking the fact that in order to invoke the Act there has to be a health condition which meets it’s definition of disability - a long term substantial condition which has a significant effect on daily life. Someone objecting to a certain substance because they don’t like it, or find it uncomfortable doesn’t meet the definition of disability under the Act, and nor should it. Which is precisely why allergies, in the main, are not covered by the Act unless they are severe.

I'd just send out a cursory team-wide email.

Dear all,
Please could we avoid spraying aerosol products in the toilets, due to airway sensitivities. There is already an automated air freshener in there to do the job of dispersing "unwanted smells." ;) Many thanks!

fair, I didn’t know that was a thing.

This, at the end of the day you are a manager and an issue has been raised with you. You have no evidence that the perfume is not affecting her lungs. As you can see from this thread there are people who can be impacted.

Time to be a manager. Hopefully the email will sort it our otherwise you will have to raise it with her.

Surely this is the wort of thing that is fixed with a sheet of A4.

Please do not spray perfumes or aerosols in the bathrooms. It can trigger XYZ. Please open a window for fresh air. Thank you.

Unfortunately so, for me its anything with white musk in it (the 90s were fun for me) so that means most modern perfumes that use it as a base smell. In an enclosed unventilated space its much worse than anywhere else

Can you engineer the light switch to activate the fan automatically.
The bathroom lacks air flow.

Yes, this is the best solution.

The perfume in a confined space would be a problem for me, but so would the air freshener. It's not normally the same on buses etc as it's not newly sprayed, and there's some airflow.

But OP yes, you have a duty to say something on behalf of your colleague, I think.

Agree. I am a manager of a large team and more than happy to tackle proper management issues but I can’t stand it when people come to me with petty complaints and behave like children telling on each other. I’d definitely do nothing and tell the complainer to speak up herself next time if it bothers her so much. Definitely don’t send a passive aggressive email to the whole team as others have suggested. We all have to put up with annoying colleagues in the workplace.

We don’t know whether she is mildly or severely affected. She said it was adversely affecting her lungs. OP can obviously asked for clarification.

i have a diagnosis of asthma. Someone perfume bombing public areas at work would definitely affect my lungs, though I suspect not enough to bring on an attack (I’d rather not test that theory).

But is this really the workplace people want? Where an employee indicates that a colleague is doing something completely unneccesary that adversely affects their health and the office jobsworth starts quibbling over the severity of the impact and whether it meets the requirements of the EA2010.

Theres no need to spraying perfume around the toilets so the issue is easily remedied.

Sounds good. Can’t see how anyone could object to this in principle.

Many people do have severe allergies or intolerances to fragrance that qualify under the disability act. It is not akin to hay fever. It is a life altering condition that makes simply existing in society and remaining employed extremely difficult.

Dismissing the condition as akin to hay fever or a preference against certain smells is ableist and uninformed.