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See Clothes Rules Squelching Creativity CASUAL OFFICE ATTIRE GOING, GOING .....
NEW YORK -- This Labor Day may mark the end of yet another mainstay of the happy-go-lucky dot.com era: the casual dress code.
In growing numbers, employers are abandoning casual dress policies established in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in favor of more formal, pre-dot.com-era business attire.
More and more firms nationwide are likely to institute new and more stringent dress codes, even going so far as to establish employee uniforms, according to workplace authority John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
In one of the most recent examples of dress code reversal, Minneapolis-based Target Corp. informed its employees that it will end its "business casual" dress code after Labor Day for its 5,000 corporate office workers.
The new Target policy is very specific, detailing exactly what is acceptable and unacceptable. Employees even have access to an internal web page featuring photos of appropriate apparel combinations.
According to the Target guidelines, business suits are preferred, but men at the very least must wear a sport coat and tie if they leave their usual work area. Those who are generally confined to their usual work area must wear a pressed collar shirt and tie with any sweater. For women, sweater sets or dressy sweaters are acceptable. Those wearing sleeveless blouses must also wear a jacket.
Reasons for uniform dress codes vary, but one common thread is employers' preference for a clean, consistent and professional image among their workers.
"Uniform dress codes have become most prominent in the banking and retail sectors, particularly on the sales floor at several major chain and department stores," noted Challenger.
"However," he continued, "the strategy to build a clean-cut corporate image and team unity may actually backfire, fostering a group-think mentality and eventually resulting in decreased productivity and employee morale.
"When you take away people's individuality, you greatly diminish their creativity and ability to think outside of the box. Uniformity in appearance tends to lead to uniformity of thought, which is detrimental to any organization that is trying to expand," said Challenger.
Some experts contend that the movement toward uniform and more formal dress codes is in response to the mass relaxation of such policies during the dot.com boom when some of the fresh start-ups abandoned all standards of attire.
"It is not that dress codes do not have a place in today's workplace. Certainly, those who meet with customers on a regular basis should look presentable and professional. For those who work in back offices, it may be necessary to establish some threshold of reasonable attire, but beyond that, it has not been proved that formal business dress somehow improves productivity or quality of output," said Challenger.
"In fact, many dot.commers, some of whom set the bar relatively low when it came to workplace wear, consistently put in 10- to 12-hour days, and even those who did not start the business still worked like entrepreneurs. If anything, we should be emulating these workers and their work styles, not shunning them."
Yet, more companies appear to be returning to increased formality in the workplace. A 2003 survey of employers by the Men's Apparel Alliance found that 20 percent of corporations reinstated formal dress codes in the 12-month period prior to the survey. Nearly 60 percent of companies polled now maintain business dress codes that include suits and ties for men and dresses for women.
"Not only can a detailed and uniform dress code suppress creativity and individuality, but some employers might find that it alienates workers, who may interpret stringent dress codes as the company's lack of trust in their taste and judgment," observed Challenger.
"Right now, employees may tolerate more stringent dress codes and in some cases uniforms because they feel that their job options are limited.
"However, the economy is going to start growing again and employers are going to start hiring. Soon, with so many retirements, we will back to where we were in the 1990s, with employers fighting for the best workers -- luring them from competitors with promises of signing bonuses and dot.com-style perks.
"When this happens -- when employees once again are in demand - we will see how long dress codes and uniforms last," Challenger concluded.
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