Dress codes, yea or nay?

Sharon McKnight SPHR

I read an article (see link below) titled [I]Your co-worker dresses like a slob. Should you say something?[/I] It got me thinking about how many times an employees came to me to ask me to "talk" to another employee that, in his or her opinion, could benefit from a little wardrobe makeover session.

My initial thought was usually whether or not the employee in question was in violation of the dress code policy. If they were, then I would meet with the supervisor, explain the situation, yada, yada, yada. If they weren't, I usually ended up counseling the employee who was perturbed by the offender's wardrobe choices. If you have a very strict dress code, employees don't like it. If you have a very lenient dress code policy, employees invariably abuse it.

So what's the solution? How often is your dress code policy updated? How do you handle pesky dress code issues?

Sharon http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2887-Workplace-Issues-Your-co-worker-dresses-like-a-slob-Should-you-say-something/?SiteId=cbmsnhp42887&sc_extcmp=JS_2887_home1

NaeNae55

Our dress code is in our employee manual, so is updated whenever the manual is. We are, however, in the middle of an experiment here. Our President is allowing us to 'dress down' (like we have been doing on Fridays for several years) through the end of January. I am loving it, and hope we can make it a permanent policy. Even on Fridays, employees know they must wear clean and neat clothes, and any t-shirts or sweatshirts can exhibit sports names but not advertisements for people or places. I feel the employees have participated appropriately, so I hope the boss does too and will let us keep the comfort wear as regular attire.

cnghr

We don't update our dress code very often, our basic dress code is part of the employee handbook and individual managers and supervisors can adapt it (within reason) to their idea of what is professional and appropriate for their department. The front-line departments and corporate headquarters are all a bit more strict in our dress code, while the back office departments tend to be more casual.

Generally, pesky dress code issues around here are handled by discussing the dress code for a specific area with that department's manager and having them deal with any offending employees. If that doesn't work, then I send out an e-mail to the entire department (or sometimes all the departments in an entire building) to remind them of the dress code. Usually that works, but if we continue to have certain offenders then I will generally talk to them one-on-one. If there are really egregious offenses, department managers/supervisors are allowed to send employees home to change, although I haven't heard of that happening in a long time.

NaeNae55

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just say casual and do away with the darn thing? Wouldn't it be great if we could just wear what we might wear out shopping or running errands? Unfortunately, anyone who has ever viewed peopleofwalmart.com knows you can't trust everyone to understand what we mean by casual or shopping attire.

Library HR

We do not have a written dress code. I usually just speak with new employees about being neat and clean and that home casual and office casual are different. Out of 105 people, I only hear 1 or 2 complaints a year. That may be because almost all of us work the public services desks at some time during the day and want to look nice if we are being seen by our friends and neighbors.

cnghr

[quote=NaeNae55;723555]Wouldn't it be nice if we could just say casual and do away with the darn thing? Wouldn't it be great if we could just wear what we might wear out shopping or running errands? Unfortunately, anyone who has ever viewed peopleofwalmart.com knows you can't trust everyone to understand what we mean by casual or shopping attire.[/quote]

I agree wholeheartedly. For a bank, our dress code really is pretty casual, but every once in a while there's somebody who needs to be talked to because on casual Fridays they have taken it to an extreme that isn't acceptable. Luckily, there's never been anything that rises to the level of the "people of walmart" pictures!

I remember one employee many years ago who didn't understand how to dress for the office, but her problem wasn't overly-casual attire, it was what she thought was appropriate professional attire. She had an outfit where the top was lowcut and the skirt was slit high (and the whole thing was skin-tight) and she told me one time that she thought that was her most "professional-looking" outfit. I bit my tongue and didn't say what I wanted to, which was that the profession portrayed by that outfit was certainly NOT banking!

Still Need Coffee

We don't update ours very often, but we do have a dress code policy in the employee handbook. We have a "jeans professional" office, which basically means uber casual, but not a slob. Our remedy for those who are a little too slovenly is that after a certain # of offenses, they have to go back to business casual. And no one wants that!

:whip: