Allen Kopelman is CEO of Nationwide Payment Systems Inc. and host of B2B Vault: The Biz-to-Biz Podcast.
Sixty-some years after American workers began to dress down on Fridays, is it finally time for corporate America to fully ditch the suit and tie?
I don’t recall seeing anyone wearing formal business attire lately, especially here in South Florida, where only an outsider would wear a dress shirt and tie. I remember making that mistake back in the nineties on a 90-degree day. By the time we returned to the business owner’s office after making the rounds to three or four restaurants, I was sweating profusely. The owner said, “Get some water and lose the tie.”
Soon after that incident, someone suggested that dressing down would make me more “relatable” to younger professionals. That’s when I made polo shirts and khakis my unofficial uniform. And I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one. Over time, clothing choices in the workplace have become more flamboyant and corporate dress codes more relaxed, and for many companies, every workday is beginning to look like Casual Friday.
The Current Status Of Dress Codes
A recent study by Randstad suggests that organizational dress codes seem out of place in the tech-driven 21st century of remote workers and hybrid workplace environments. The author notes that computers don’t care what workers are wearing, stating, “Rigid dress codes are out, and casual dress codes are in, if there’s a code at all.”
Ranstad acknowledged, however, that businesses are reevaluating their dress code policies and considering how employee attire reflects their organization’s culture, ethos and brand image. These decisions could shape the future of office dress codes, they added, by establishing clear guidelines that foster confidence and security among office workers.
Setting Guidelines
Dressing well can affect how people feel about themselves and how others perceive them. Tyler Tervooren of Riskology described an encounter he had with two strangers on a bus, one well dressed and the other shabbily dressed. He followed the well-dressed man’s advice, even though it turned out to be wrong, simply because of his physical appearance.
Tervooren concluded that the way people dress affects how they are seen and heard, writing, “It will subconsciously tell them if you’re like them or if you’re different. It will determine whether they listen or ignore. Trust or distrust.”
In my experience, perceptions on appropriate dress tend to vary by business type, company culture and employee demographics. Crafting policies that stay on the right side of compliance, HR and attorneys is often no easy task at a time when people conduct business anywhere and everywhere. But I have found that establishing clear and well-thought-out rules and policies are the best defense against employee complaints and frivolous lawsuits.
Navigating Hybrid Workplaces
Zoom meetings, for example, have become the norm, and some publicized mishaps—like the guy who wore a shirt and tie but stood up, revealing his boxers—and similar scenarios went viral before, during and after the pandemic. Dress codes can help mitigate these embarrassments and encourage younger generations to step up their game.
Many Gen Z and Millennials have strong opinions about casual dress at work. This practice may be acceptable for workers who do not have to interact with customers, especially at tech companies that have loose rules and employ remote workers. But I believe it is still important for public-facing employees to represent their company’s brand by dressing appropriately, which each company will interpret differently.
The aim when establishing a dress code should be to give employees enough latitude to wear clothes that express their unique personalities and styles and help them be relatable to your customers. There is a fine line between being overdressed and underdressed; you don’t want to intimidate potential clients by overdressing, but you don’t want to scare them away by underdressing, either. Keep your company’s values, brand image and target audience in mind to set a clear path forward.
Staying Relatable And Relevant
If you’re like me, catering to a clientele who is much younger than I am, try wearing a T-shirt and baseball hat so clients and prospects don’t feel like they’re talking to their dad—or worse, someone who escaped from the 1950s.
We’ve come a long way from The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, a classic 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson. What would the main character, Tom Rath, think of our polos and baseball hats today? We’ll never know, of course, but I personally think he wouldn’t hesitate to ditch the suit.
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