employee won’t stop hugging people

I was told to stay off screens for a few days last week due to a possible concussion (I’m fine), so this was originally published in 2012.

A reader writes:

What is considered excessive when it comes to friendly displays of affection in the workplace?

We have a gregarious female employee who regularly solicits hugs from people — not from other employees but from outside frequent visitors and volunteers who come into the office.

One part of this employee’s job is to greet people when they come in through our front entrance to the building. We’re a small nonprofit organization, open to the public. She’s not exactly a receptionist, but she is usually the closest to the front when someone comes in. Most often, this happens when someone first arrives, usually with people she knows but hasn’t seen in several days. But I have also seen her approach a visiting guest speaker that she had never met before with a hug, so I was a bit surprised by that. She also approaches certain volunteers like this, even though they are in on a more frequent basis. I can’t always tell if the volunteers are receptive to this, or if they are just not saying anything.

These are not simple polite hugs of greeting but rather overly demonstrative productions. She also does it in a way that draws a lot of attention to herself — for example, she’ll sometimes go for a longer-than-necessary, full-body hug. I’m not sure how else to describe it. She has a naturally loud voice, so even if I’m in another room, I can usually overhear the accompanying expressions. She’ll loudly announce how good it feels to be hugged. It just seems overly self-indulgent and unnecessary. I’m not trying to be judgmental, but I know that others have expressed discomfort with it.

Some people have directly told her that they do not hug, but others seem to tolerate or accept it, while others seem completely fine with it and seem to like the attention.  At least one volunteer, who is retired from the insurance industry and has worked with personnel training, has complained to me that she finds this very unprofessional.

She uses the excuse that she came from a family that encouraged this behavior, which is fine, but I suspect it has more to do with a highly demanding personal need for attention on her part. While I have nothing at all against people hugging one another in general, the atmosphere that she brings with it is that it’s almost like a form of therapy for her, and I don’t think this is the place for that.

I will have to do a performance review with her in the future and would like to address the topic professional conduct in the workplace, delineating that what is fine at home is not always fine at work. She is older than I am, so it’s not as though she’s young and naive. At present, our personnel policy is currently under review. Is there anything that we should have specifically written into the policy to deal with such situations as this? We have an attorney on the committee, so that should cover any legal questions.

But beyond legal concerns, does this sound like something that could potentially veer into sticky social situations that could be prevented with well-written policy? I intend to give this employee a clear recommendation that she scale it back significantly. Many people stop into our office occasionally, and occasionally quick and light hugs of greeting are politely exchanged (not a regular occurance but it happens), so it’s not a totally foreign behavior. But where is the line, exactly, in something like this?

I’m not sure I can say exactly where the line is — but it’s somewhere far, far away from where this employee has ended up. It’s not that hugging someone is never appropriate in an office — there are offices where the occasional hug occurs — but it certainly shouldn’t be the default mode of greeting someone. Regardless of where the line is for normal people, though, your employee has shown an inability to judge when it isn’t and isn’t appropriate, so it just needs to stop entirely.

The way to address this is by talking to her, not by instituting a new policy. There’s no need for a new policy when the problem is only with one person. Just talk to her.

And don’t wait for her performance evaluation either — talk to her now. Performance evaluations shouldn’t have surprises in them; you should be giving people feedback throughout the year. It’s not fair to blindside someone in a review, and it’s also not good management to neglect problems until then. (And I know that it sometimes feels easier to wait for the formal evaluation, but that would be abdicating your responsibility as her manager. You need to do it now.)

I would say something like this:  “I really appreciate how friendly you are to visitors to the office. However, not everyone is comfortable with being hugged in a professional environment, and they won’t always speak up because they don’t want to create awkwardness. I know your intention is to be welcoming, but different people have different physical boundaries, and in an office, we need to err on the side of making sure no one feels uncomfortable from physical contact. So that means no more hugging.”

And you need to be very direct about this. Don’t be tempted to just tell her to “scale back the hugging” or “limit it to people you know,” because she’s already shown that she doesn’t have appropriate judgment here and can’t tell when someone would or wouldn’t be comfortable with it. You need to tell her to stop it, period.

She may push back, and you’ll need to hold firm. If she’s skeptical, you have the option of explaining that you’ve had complaints about it (although you should avoid naming names so those people don’t find their relationship with her strained), but frankly, even without complaints, this is behavior you’d need to stop … because even if no one spoke up about it, the behavior is unprofessional and likely to make at least a few people uncomfortable. People have the right not to receive that type of physical contact (especially full-bodied physical contact!) in the workplace, and as an employer, you have a responsibility to ensure your office isn’t making people physically uncomfortable.

If she continues to argue, you can simply say, “Be that as it may, no more hugging going forward.”

You’ll also need to make sure that she doesn’t start grumbling to visitors about this — “I’d hug you, but I’m not allowed,” etc. If that happens, you need to address it immediately, explaining to her that it’s unprofessional, and perhaps having a wider conversation about professionalism.

And again, no policy needed. You’re allowed to give your employees direction that isn’t codified in policy. In fact, most direction you give employees isn’t going to be codified in policy. Just talk to her. And do it now — don’t wait. I can almost guarantee you that some people who need to visit your office are dreading it because of the unwelcome physical embrace they know they’ll receive.

You can read an update to this post here.

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