Dress Code Policy

Hello everyone! I am in the process of establishing a formal dress code policy for my financial institution. I was wondering if any of you could share with me a copy of your policy for some ideas??

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  • 18 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • The question of dress code can vary widely from one financial institution to another. Ours is relatively relaxed overall (some of our back-office departments are always "business [U]very[/U] casual") but our front-line employees and those of us in the corporate offices are expected to dress much more professionally.

    Rather than have a strict "wear this, not that" type of policy (with a few exceptions) what has worked well for us has been a rather broad policy that reads, in part, as follows:

    [I]"During business hours or when representing the bank, you are expected to present a clean, neat, and tasteful appearance. You should dress and groom yourself according to the requirements of your position and accepted social standards. This is particularly true if your job involves dealing with customers or visitors in person. Your supervisor or department head is responsible for establishing a reasonable dress code appropriate to the job you perform."[/I]

    This allows supervisors to impose slightly more strict or more relaxed requirements, whatever they feel is most appropriate for their department.
  • Thanks so much for your reply. Your ideas is similar to what we have been doing. However, it seems as though some employees are dressing "inappropriate" with backless pantsuits, too short of skirts-mid thigh, walking shorts and tennis shoes to name a few. The problem I have is not all supervisors are recognizing and addressing this a "inappropriate dress attire" which is leading to other employees in other departments to follow suit. Like your facility-we are also fairly "casual" with our business dress attire - we just simply need some better guidelines.
  • We have occasionally added specific examples of what's inappropriate, when it became necessary, such as when there was a rash of employees running out and getting assorted body & facial piercings and we had to add a specific prohibition against wearing those at work. And at some point there must have been a problem with tube tops or too-bare tank tops, because there's a specific mention of those, too.

    It's hard to imagine in what reality a supervisor might think that some of the things you mentioned were okay, but then I remember one woman I worked with who actually thought the most "professional" outfit she had in her wardrobe was one that consisted of a skin-tight skirt slit up to there and a top so low cut she was in danger of falling out of it. It may have been considered professional attire in some circles, but I can guarantee you the profession it brought to mind for most people [U]wasn't[/U] banking!
  • You need to discuss this with your supervisors. Sometimes having someone come in and talk about professional attire works best, and sometimes it is just having a small meeting. If all your supervisors are there, then everyone is on the same page. It is also helpful to give examples. Show them pictures of what is good and what is not.

    Your top management should be talking to the supervisors about this too. If the supervisor has to go to the trouble to call someone in and even possibly send them home AND they know their own boss is noticing their department looks unprofessional and it might count against them in their reviews, they will usually get in line quickly. If all they have to do is turn it over to HR they are much less likely to follow up.
  • I'll be happy to send you ours if you want, but ours is a "Jeans Professional" dress code - may not be appropriate for a financial institution, unless you guys are WAYYYYY cooler than the financial institutions I've worked for!
  • Thanks for your offer, but we're not quite that relaxed-i'm jealous,though. I appreciate all your advice and it is good to know not all employers have specific policies that are completely by the book. Maybe I need to stay focused more on what is NOT APPROPRIATE work attire, since that is the reason the question was directed in the first place!!!
  • We too are a financial institution. Not many years ago we were professional dress year round. A few years back we started to allow Business Casual from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Last September we were all suprised when our dress code was changed to Business Casual year round. I have not worn a tie to work since.
    We do limit what is acceptable for business casual. In fact our back office funtions/dept's are now allowed to wear jeans everyday.
  • Dutch, do you find that people tend to go from "jeans casual" to "jeans sloppy" in those back office departments sometimes?

    We've had back office departments that have worn jeans to work every day for 15 or 20 years, and we have to remind them every once in a while that "jeans" does not mean the old, holey, ratty ones that you'd use to paint the house or clean the garage in, or that a t-shirt with a rude saying on it is not appropriate office attire no matter how casual the office is. Seems like if we don't remind them occasionally, it definitely tends to slip.
  • I'm in aggreance with some others here - focus on your supervisors. If it were me, I'd conduct a supervisor training giving a "refresher" on the current dress code and how to have conversations with employees - sometimes it can be an uncomfortable conversation to discuss their dress - maybe do some mock conversations to get them thinking more actively about it. If your organization is set up where everyone has e-mail, following the supervisor training I'd send out a short e-mail memo reminding everyone of the dress code. Most organizations I've worked for have found the need to do this type of thing this time of year anyway - because the warmer it gets, the more people want to push the line.
    When I'm doing a new hire training or supervisor training, the key thing I tell everyone is "If you have to question it, if you look in the mirror and say 'is this ok for work' then play it safe and go with no!"
  • cnghr - so far we have had very few issues with "jeans sloppy". I believe this is due to the tenure of our employees in these dept's and they still recall having to wear professional dress every day and therefore are very appreciative of being able to dress casual. The only problems we have had so far are with new employees that have never worked for an old and conservative bank. Their idea of business casual and ours has had a few bumps in the road. Recently our biggest issues have been with tattoos and piercings. Our policy states no tattoos are to be visible and piercings are allowed only in the ear lope.
  • Thanks so much for all the responses to my question concerning Dress Code. It's good to know you all seem to have the same similar problems. And, just as some of you mentioned, the warmer months seem to cause most of the problems. Everyone wants to show a little too much skin! As I mentioned, we have a dressy casual environment, with only senior management being the best dressed. I have put together a simple policy and will be sharing it with senior management next Monday, but I think your ideas of actually training supervisors is probably the most important.
    Again, THANK YOU FOR YOUR FEEDBACK!!!!
  • [quote=Dutch2;723975]cnghr - so far we have had very few issues with "jeans sloppy". I believe this is due to the tenure of our employees in these dept's and they still recall having to wear professional dress every day and therefore are very appreciative of being able to dress casual. The only problems we have had so far are with new employees that have never worked for an old and conservative bank. Their idea of business casual and ours has had a few bumps in the road. Recently our biggest issues have been with tattoos and piercings. Our policy states no tattoos are to be visible and piercings are allowed only in the ear lope.[/quote]

    You're definitely right about the employees who remember the days when banks had much stricter ideas of what constituted professional dress. Most of our longer-tenured back office employees are women and many of them remember when "casual" meant a suit with [U]slacks[/U] and a jacket instead of a skirt, pantyhose, and heels. Those employees certainly appreciate the idea of being able to dress more casually!
  • Absolutely.... I had no idea that not requiring the ladies to wear pantyhose would be such a HUGE hit. Then of course by bride of 'bout 30 years explained it to me.
    This was a much bigger event then not requiring the men to wear neck ties.
    I've heard that like most everything else dress codes are cyclical - now that we are business casual year round it will probably begin to trend back to profession dress.
  • We have several male employees who wear neckties by choice, which I find interesting, as it certainly isn't required per our dress code. Our CEO rarely even wears button-down shirts anymore, he generally wears polo shirts & khakis.

    I've often wondered if some day the trend will naturally go back toward less casual dress. We are forcing the issue with one of our back office departments...they will be moving into our building later this year and we have told them that once they are located in the same building as corporate headquarters they will be expected to adhere to a less casual dress code. The department head was NOT happy to hear about that, I guess for years she has been touting the casualness of the dress code as one of the perks of working for her, but there is a much greater chance that they will run into board members or shareholders once they are working in this building. It's not like we're requesting overly formal dress or anything, just change jeans & sneakers for slacks and less casual shoes, but the announcement was certainly not very well-accepted, at least originally.
  • I've had to counsel an AVP (52 years old, 14 years with the credit union) three times in the past two weeks about keeping his shirt tucked in. He's already the cause of two official dress code "clarifications". I'm sick of it.
  • [quote=Traceyd;723931]Hello everyone! I am in the process of establishing a formal dress code policy for my financial institution. I was wondering if any of you could share with me a copy of your policy for some ideas??[/quote]


    Traceyd,

    If you're an HRHero customer, you can find a personal appearance policy at:
    [URL]http://www.hrhero.com/lc/policies/317.html[/URL]

    If you're an HRLaws subscriber, you can find it at:
    [URL]http://www.hrlaws.com/node/1011916[/URL]


    Hope this helps.

    Sharon
  • Our dress code is both extremely specific (we employ a lot of college students and you have to be specific on issues like piercings) and also flexible recognizing that we have different departments within one organization with varying dress code needs.

    Two issues we clarified which I think has been helpful is that we specificly state that a supervisor determines what may be "offensive or distracting".

    We also clarify that if a person's appearance does not meet our dress code requirements, they need to get in compliance before we will have any discussion about whether our dress code is fair. Comply first, we'll talk later.

    One thing I have observed over the years about dress codes is that if you are going to have them, you need to be consistent in applying the rules or its almost better to not have rules at all. I think the majority of the dress code problems I see are the result of supervisors who have not been consistent in holding staff accountable to meet the dress code.
  • Well, atlast my new Dress Code Policy - actually my newly updated Appearance and Personal Hygiene Policy has been completed, discussed and shared with all supervisors and staff. And.... it surprisingly has went over very well! I have already noticed those who were wearing the short skirts are now at knee or below and the feedback has been quite good. Actually, I have been told "It is about time we formally announced and promise to enforce the dress code". THANK YOU to all of you who helped me with this matter.
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