Cause for Casual?

Recently, the dress code in my workplace, a white color corporate office, has made a strange evolution.

A few months ago, Friday was known as "Jeans Day". Each Friday was assigned a charity from a list of colleague's suggestions, and for a minor donation of $5 to an administrative assistant, one was allowed to sport Levi's or one of the ever increasing list of "designer" jeans. (Sidebar- interesting that some folk's jeans are actually more costly than their formal wear. Just an observation on the range of choice we have in the modern market.)

One month ago, the policy was questioned. Many things in the organization were going through changes, as were the executives that approved the jeans day. For a few weeks, the Friday's were no longer jeans days - the reasoning being (and as confirmed in an email communicating the policy) "...wearing casual clothes to the workplace may not convey the appropriate workplace ethic". So, with that, done were the dungarees.

A week ago, jeans made a dramatic comeback. Turning a complete 180, the Human Resources department moved to making casual dress ok all the time. The "memo" sent out was worded in a way that made it seem like the new policy was a major capitulation to the masses of workers demanding it...like a gift that had been held back unreasonably for years. Rejoice! rejoice! we can wear our sports jerseys to work! Goodbye cap toes...Mandals and socks forever!

Actually, no. The water cooler scuttlebutt provided none of that sort of joyous exclamation. Perhaps a few folks were happy about the policy, but so far, I'm guessing that there are really only a few small groups of people that were pleased with the policy change:
1. Folks that already dressed casually, and were glad that they no longer were bending the rules - mailroom, server room
2. Folks that like to change rules just to change them (think "...the man" types)
3. Folks that truly think the change to casual will spark a new excitement in the organization, with 5 jeans days a week bringing about improved productivity, better attitudes, and world peace.

So, the folks who already wore whatever they wanted continued to do so, now a bit more proudly. The folks that like to change the rules broke out their awesome 13-color, multi-textural jumpers and Nantucket pink chinos (yes I witnessed both). And the casual-dress-code-will-save-the-world types gladly donned their t-shirts or golf polos, and waited for everything to get awesome. I even noticed one of the C-level executives in jeans...on Wednesday.

However, another group of people started talking about the real potential for downsides to become causal as a result of casual. What about the distraction when a certain colleague's style is vile? It's much easier to cover up with dress clothes...hard to make a suit look really bad, unless it's drastically off-size. But offensive t-shirts, sports jerseys, and beat up jeans are drastically different. What about the possible lack of professionalism that goes along with dressing less "professionally"?

It's proven that clothes are at least PART of an impression one makes. And you'll find studies reporting everything from "casual clothing makes the workforce more creative and more productive, giving them a better attitude" to "employees tend to work less diligently when not feeling like they are in the work environment through the clothing they are wearing". It really comes down to the individual, both from the context of wearer and observer that determines to what degree their own clothes and those of others affect their professional ethic. So, do clothes matter?...that answer is definitely yes. The follow on questions on dress code is where debate and opinion begins.

As for my opinion, I'll simply say that I'm looking forward to seeing how the changes affect this corporate culture, and hope for the best - professionalism remains, creativity/attitude gets better. I'll also hope that I see at least one Bill Cosby sweater or drastically mis-sized pair of jeans each day - that will improve at least this employee's attitude.