If casual Friday is good for business, why isn't every day casual? If casual Friday is not good for business, why do it?
I once asked a friend who worked for a
big three accounting firm why they had to wear suits everyday. This was after shopping for many suits and seeing the financial impact. Her response was "we interact with customers daily". That's the only defense of business dress I've ever heard. Most people have no fundamental reason for why business dress is required. Unless you are selling suits, there's no reason a customer should care if you are wearing one.
To understand why business dress code is important to a business, you have to remember that the most important thing to a business is making a profit. In fact, it must be. Business can't do anything else without making a profit (or at least breaking even). So any change in dress code should be toward that end. Simply increasing revenue does not increase profit. Simply decreasing costs does not increase profit either. Any action a business takes has an impact on both revenue and costs. The trick is to maximize one while minimizing the other. Simply increasing productivity does not increase profit either.
I've never heard a suit-proponent cite studies on business dress affecting profit (or shareholder value) either positively or negatively. I was pretty sure there aren't any, but I'd never researched this.
So here's some googling, analysis and explanation. This is definitely not research, but it's enough to keep me satisfied.
It's very interesting that if you
search for the phrase "productivity dress" the top-ranked links are to studies that show dressing down
increases productivity.
"Seven in 10 employers believe 'dress-down' days have a beneficial effect on employee performance, with more than half believing that formal attire has a negative impact on staff." Link.
"Firms that allow their staff to wear casual clothes can benefit from increased productivity, new research suggests." Link.
""A survey by employment law firm Peninsula found that the majority of employers and their staff believe workplace 'dress down' days improve employee work performance." Link (note same study as first one above)
Now look at the highly-ranked pages that claim dress codes increase productivity.
"Looking to increase your companies productivity this year? Start with the Dress Code...How does your staff look ? Are they dressed for business? The office casual 90's are over." Link
The above statement is by business productivity authority Dennis Dann. Dann became a management guru by
selling suits, and he still does.
The Consell Institute of Image Management (in a somewhat dated study) says that
"Contrary to popular belief, dress-down days in the workplace bring a decrease in mannerly behavior and productivity" Link
Bearing in mind the Consell Institute is an organization devoted to "image consultation", let's look a the specifics of their study.
Their research shows a laundry list of evils caused by casual dress in a large number of firms. Some of their points are well stated and quite reasonable, such as more casual dress leading to HR complaints about sexual harrassment. Some of the points are questionable, such as seeing a "decrease in morality". Evidently immoral people are less profitable employees?
There's one non-sequitor: "loss of individuality". How can rules about what clothes you are allowed to wear cause a loss of individuality?
Clothes make the person.
The most glaring omission, however, is the impact on profit. No mention of declining stock value, or earnings reports being off. Many increased costs are mentioned but that's only half of the equation.
Finally, if you want people to take your report seriously, you shouldn't
conclude it with a plea for the fashion industry and the loss of jobs from people not wearing nice clothes.
Certainly Profitguide.com can shed some light on how dress codes increase profitability.
Here's a good article on how to implement a dress code because "casual attire could be hurting your bottom line". Conspicuously absent is any mention of how profit is increased (in fact, the article says "could be hurting"), and only a non-cited mention of studies on productivity.
Expert Magazine
cites two studies on the impact of casual dress. One is the same study by Jeffrey Magee that the Consell Institute cites, and the other a poll by labor law firm
Jackson Lewis. This firm only published one set of poll results for 2000 on their website.
The
2000 JL poll, doesn't talk about the bottom line either, and also says the casual dress has a "positive effect on employee morale" and that 70% of the companies they polled have some sort of dress down day.
But then in
2001, JL says this in another poll:
"Three out of four companies (75%) said they have a policy permitting business casual dress. Of these, 56% allow casual attire every day of the workweek. This is a 22% increase from 1999 when only 34% of those answering the question said they allow casual attire every day. The vast majority (75%) described their experience with casual dress as positive and said it improved morale (70%) and was an effective recruiting tool (34%). The only disadvantage was an increase in flirtatious behavior, cited by 17% of those who permit casual dress."
So 75% of the polled companies are all making the same unprofitable mistakes? Unlikely.
Expert Mag also says
"Many companies reverting to a suits only dress code are seeing a positive impact with increased revenue generation, thus using a dress code as a marketing device"
but does not mention companies, and again is half of the profit equation. Revenue generation does not mean increased profit.
If there is a clear link between profitability and formal business dress, why isn't there a single company who can make a direct correlation between the two? Even the productivity and revenue increases cited in these articles aren't specific. Companies are proud when they find things that make them more profitable.
In reviewing a few other articles, I noticed a lot of
language like this.
"A new generation of workers, more interested in comfort and individual expression than in trying to fit into a rigid corporate mold, have worked their way into positions of leadership and influence. And they have begun to exercise this influence to dismantle traditional dress policies in the most conservative institutions in America."
Take the word "dress" out of this statement and it reads like a speech about the threat of Communism. Casual dress is subversive and contrary to conservative business values (arg, businesses don't have values, people have values.).
My suspicion is this sort of attitude is really why people want formal dress. It's about control. If we let people wear comfortable clothes they will want comfortable chairs as well.
