Discussion on:

Take this advice to avoid dress code horror stories

Dress Codes: We should be more concerned about what is in a persons head and heart than what they look like or wear. As long as the clothes are clean and neat it makes no difference if they wear Levi jeans and t-shirt or Levi Dockers and sport shirt.

I have a server down, three PCs on the fritz,
one sysadmin sick, one sysadmin who just got
hired away for 15% more money, hackers attacking my firewall (so far, it's working,
but I'm still watching it like a hawk), 17 customers who want Windows/2000 installed, 103 computers awaiting patches for the last set of bugs Microsoft sent us, customers complaining about how much IT costs them, and these people are DISCUSSING WHAT TO WEAR?

I guess I'm in the wrong place. I don't have time to dealwith this foolishness. I show up in sweat pants or jeans as I please, I always wear a baseball cap (I've hit my head more times than I care to think about) and anybody who complains will automatically go to the end of the line when the next virus hits.

Jeff

These are the people who sap the productivity out of companies with busy work. They're the same class of people who choke our capitols with silly laws to control private behavior.

Casual wear vs shirt & tie: I have never seen a study that showed a decline in 'productivity' on 'Casual Friday'. The only thing I saw was a decrease in dry cleaning bills. When the last company I worked for went from suit & tie to casual I saved $80/month or about a $1000/yr. Nice raise and no decline in productivity. The only time suit & ties are appropriate is when you are seeing customers or they can see you. Misconceptions arise as some people equate 'casual' with 'not competant' sad but true. I don't agree with 'Casual Fridays' as it is just a way for a company to display control over the stafff. Since if it is OK on Fridays why not Tuesday? Write the rules up and then let the people alone to do their job.

Casual Dress: I suspect most of the readers think they are talking about men for the most part. Unfortunately, dress casual has a wider range when women enter the picture. What is dress casual for one woman may be really tacky to another. And then there is the generation gap. Dress casual for older employees is probably quite different than for younger employees. And then we have to get into shapes and sizes. I don't ever want to be part of the Fashion Police but some of what I see raisesmy eyebrows. However as I neared retirement age I moved to dress casual ... period. But then I work for a small company on the outer fringes of civilization... What works in small towns in the back woods probably won't fly in the big city.

This is why I want a work-at-home job. I don't deal with clients in person now, so why should I wear dresses and nylons?

Casual dress is a morale-builder because, as someone else mentioned, it's a way of helping employees save on clothes. It's like giving them a raise, except it doesn't cost you anything. I encourage it wherever possible, particularly in the case of lower-paid employees who probably don't have much cash for office wear.

Ultimately how one dresses is driven by the market, which in turn is driven by the consumer. If you can keep the customers out of your work area, and your manager knows you're competent, then you don't really need a dress code. Otherwise you have todress to sell your product. That might mean suit and tie for the older generation with MBA's, or t-shirt and jeans for the young guys fresh out of college. (Identifying with the latter, I tend to trust the companies at trade shows with t-shirt-wearing people more than the ones with guys in suits. They seem to know their products better than the suits.)

There doesn't need to be a difference in code to eleviate the problem of women's skimpy clothes. I want to stare at my male colleague's armpits as much as my femail colleague's grey-from-the-wash bra. Cotton t-shirts are minimum. Everyone crawling under a desk is expected in trousers (Dockers) and shorts aren't allowed. Women can wear skirts for meetings and if the guys are well presented in a kilt, there'd be no point in objecting to that either.

Set the minimums and trust your staff. If you don't trust them to be able to dress themselves, why are they working for you?

Dress Codes -- good or bad?: I like the idea of a more relaxed working environment in terms of attire.

However, there is a limit to what may be considered appropriate vs. what is not. Such judgments by their nature are extremely subjective. Judgments of any sort, especially in terms of dress, tend to be a subtle way of attempting to control the appearance and thereby activity of a person. From observation that is how I've seen people react.
I don't feel that the term "casual" can beuniformly defined based on a given age group.
The value of a dress-code ends when such codes begin to restrict the employee and/or increase the (typically high) pressure that the typical IT worker is under. As one goes up in the IT hierarchy, the dress-code, if any, needs to consider the needs of the person.

What is "sloppily dressed"? Anything that is different from how an individual normally dresses. Of course, this will vary from sub-culture to sub-culture through the US.

Usingunwritten "dress-code" as a postive managment technique:

If someone typically wears "business casual", and then depending on proximity of a deadline, suddenly dresses more shabbily, that may be seen as a warning sign that all is not right for the individual in question.

An example:

If someone is dressing "sloppily" who has typically dressed "business casual" before, then it is probably a very good warning sign that something within that individuals life is "not right". The compassionate manager will treat such things with sensitivity and consideration.

Finally, in no case shall the way a person dresses be allowed to determine whether they are to be hired or terminated. Such judgments are baseless. Whether a person can do the job or not should not be based on how they dress.
It is assumed that the person will dress as th

who are the fashion police?: If the Human Resources Manager or some other important personage should be offended by something being worn by an IT person. That Human Resources Manager or some other important personage should go to the IT Manager/ Supervisor in charge of the IT person in question. Then the person's immediate supervisor should go to him or her and explain that nobody wants to look at his dirty toenails or her bra and panties. Explain that "while we want *you* to be comfortable,we also want your fellow employees to be comfortable as well."

Of course you cannot fire someone on the way they dress, but if they are belligerantly refusing to follow rules, there are probably a wealth of other reasons to fire him (or her) aswell.

Dress Code: I worked for a company as a field service tech. I was one the top three producers of income for my department. I dressed in business casual (Button down shirt, tie and pressed slacks). A lot of my customers were in construction sites and I got gigged for coming into the office with scuffed shoes and dirty clothes. When I asked my manager if he had been to the sites he said that didn't matter. That I wasn't abiding by the dress code. I asked for a copy and he said that they didn't have one written down. That it was up to the managers to create. I said that if it was written down I would follow it. (I went home that day updated my resume' and got a better job.)

Casual Dress and the "Fashion Cop": One job I had went to casual days. On one particular day I wore jeans because I would be crawling around under desks pulling wires. The HR Manager did not like that and called my manager saying a was "dressing unprofessionally". We nicknamed her "Fashion Cop" ever since.

I now manage an IT department and only require shirt and tie when we have meetings with customers.

White Shirt & Tie?: Corporate America went from white shirt and tie to "business casual" - buttondowns and khakis in a matter of years. 5 years later and with a small firm, the standard has suddenly gone back to shirt and tie, despite the fact thatour customers work casually. The motivation here is to simply "look professional" and highlights my firm's inferiority complex. Oddly enough, our technologists balk at a dress code which creates customer confusion and implies a less than fair and consistent company policy. Despite the unfaltering dedication of our employees, this policy is a major bone of contention which few are willing to admit.

The company I work for went from "business casual" to completely casual for a while. Then the Operations Manager decided that because people were wearing jeans, that explained the low productivity and high error rate. Now we are back to "business casual" Monday through Thursday and "casual Fridays". Of course, the only thing that has changed is that jeans are only permitted on Fridays. We still have some people who dress "gangsta casual" (shirts unbuttoned and shirts and undershirts hanging out) and production and errors are still about the same. So the only ones who were punished were those of us who wore jeans and still dressed neatly. I suggested that we have a written policy that included collared shirts buttoned and tucked in, but that was dismissed out of hand. Go figure!