Office environment - Do you follow the company's dress code?
The way you and all members of your team present themselves is a crucial part of creating a good impression for your clients, particularly in their first encounters with you.
Dressing up
One aspect of this is the dress code. Dress code is important for two reasons:
- Looking professional and keen for business
- Reinforce the company's branding
✅ Figure: Strong branding makes a difference
Public events and meetings
Of course, when in a public event such as a User Group, conference or seeing clients you should "Dress Up".
It should go without saying, but of course, things such as shaving off your weekend facial growth, using deodorant and having clean teeth and nice breath is assumed.
Figure: "There is nothing wrong with being the best-dressed man in the room." - Sean Connery
On a business flight
It's a good idea to "Dress Up" in flights as you never know who you will be seated next to.
Figure: Why dress up in a flight
Dressing down (aka Casual Fridays)
Many companies find it a good idea to have Casual Fridays. It is free and easy to do and gives the team something to look forward to.
At SSW employees can optionally work from home Monday/Tuesday, then "dress up" on Wednesdays by wearing company colors, with a nice shirt (business or polo), trousers (not blue jeans), belt, nice shoes (no sneakers, joggers or thongs). So most employees wear their SSW shirts or SSW T-shirts on Wednesdays.
Then they "dress down" later in the week... so they have "Casual Thursday" and "Fun Friday". Thursdays are for casual clothes. On Fridays, employees are encouraged to wear sporty clothes such as shorts. It allows the end of the week to be fun.
Figure: SSW Dress Code poster
Shorts Days - the cool exception
On very hot days, shorts are allowed as soon as you've got an email like this:
Hi All
The maximum temperature for today is 30.
Feel free to wear shorts if you like 🌞 (hope you haven't skipped leg day 😜)
If you decide against it, then don't forget the SSW dress code 👔 applies as usual (e.g. dress up on Monday and Tuesday - no jeans).
Today's forecast: Sunny. Winds north to northwesterly 15 to 20 km/h turning west to southwesterly 20 to 30 km/h in the late morning and afternoon.
Note:
- At SSW, shorts day is on only if this email comes.
- Why? We don’t want people looking at different weather apps and having different rules apply... so if it’s over 30 but the email doesn’t come (e.g. there is a bug 🐞), then there’s no shorts that day.
Sophie
-- Powered by SSW.Shorts --
See the code: https://github.com/SSWConsulting/SSW.Shorts
<This email was sent as per https://ssw.com.au/rules/do-you-have-a-dress-code>
✅ Figure: Good example - Nice "Shorts Day" email template by SSW.Shorts