In this weeks class discussion workplace dress came up as a topic of interest. I have since thought about the dress code for my place of employment workplace and noticed some significant changes over the years. Initially men and women were provided a blue shirt with the company logo on it and we had to wear khaki or black pants, no jeans. Since everyone received the blue logo shirt at first hire, it would take months before the manager would purchase the shirt for employees so eventually policy changed to professional dress. I was moved to a satellite in the company and the professional dress code was practiced by myself and my fellow employees. For the last two years we have not had a department manager and I was recently moved back to my home work site. The first thing I noticed was that the dress code was not being enforced. The majority of the women wear leggings or skinny jeans on a daily basis and the front desk receptionist has fire red hair. My mind was blown. I immediately thought, no wonder they are behind in their work. If the work environment has become so lax that the simple dress code policy isn't being enforced, I doubted that any of the the work standards were being enforced as well. Do you think a persons professional appearance has an effect on work performance?
Yeah this is interesting to consider. Its kind of a chicken and the egg situation. Is the lax dress code a result of bad work performance and enforcement, or is bad work performance a result of a lax dress code. I guess it depends on a lot of different factors specific to the situation, but I definitely think a dress code can be used as a tool to set the tone of a work place.
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