In its early stage, only the Administrative Office could wear casual clothes on Friday. There were no guidelines as to what we could wear. We typically wore jeans, T-shirts (or sweatshirts) and running shoes. In the summer, some people wore walking shorts. If we had a meeting with outside people, we had to wear our business clothes. You could imagine how the Branch staff reacted when they found out what the people at "HO" were wearing. It was then rolled out to the branches to have a Casual Friday. A dress code for Fridays was instituted. We could wear jeans, casual pants, running shoes but no T-shirts or sweatshirts bearing comic pictures or advertising. Now the public got a taste of things to come.
About a year later, it was decided to allow casual dress at all locations on Thursday through Saturday. The casual dress code was amended again. We could no longer wear jeans and running shoes. We could wear colored jeans but not denim. All T-shirts had to have collars and no sweatshirts. Early this month, they went all the way and decided that our every day dress is business casual. Over the last 2 years, the Marketing Dept has reviewed studies from other corporations and conducted several surveys with our own customer base. The results were positive and there didn't seem to be adverse reactions by the public to our dress code.
The ever-changing dress was redefined again. Colored jeans are out and so are denim shirts & skirts. The only shirts with logos that can be worn are those of the well-known manufacturers. Let's face it, can you actually buy a golf shirt with nothing on it? Companies must advertise, so the little check marks or a man playing polo are allowed.
How has this impacted the employees? With the strictness of the code, a lot of people don't have casual clothes that meet the criteria. Sure, there may be enough shirts or pants to wear for a couple of days and then the rest of the wardrobe is still too dressy. We are still seeing people wearing dress clothes just because they have run out of clothing. There are people who have an expensive wardrobe of business clothing and will be wearing it just to get their money out of it. Nevertheless, the employees are extremely happy with the new dress code. It will be an evolutionary process whereby when we do go and buy clothing, we will steer toward the business casual wear as opposed to suits.
Go To Page: 1 2
