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Written by Adam Montandon [permalink]
Dress Codes in Creative Companies.
I am constantly surprised to see just how many large creative companies enforce dress code on their employees. They see it as a way to communicate a corporate identity. How your staff dress can go a long way to how you are perceived in the outside world. Dressing smartly and appropriately for work is seen as very important by a lot of people, and many people in large organisations find that certain clothes like hats are completely banned.
A business suit never goes out of fashion, and if we look at images of businessmen they barely change throughout the decades.
However, in a creative company, fashions often change faster than the HR department can update their codes. If you are a cutting edge company you need to be ableto quickly respond to small changes. Having staff display a little bit of cool every now and then can help clients identify with them. If your clients want the latest and greatest services, the staff should be free to express that in their dress code.
Individual expression through dress increases in importance as the size of the company increases. People need to be recognised and stand out from the rest of the pack. By encouraging this, staff are more likely to express their individuality in their work, and bring in additional creativity and personal flair.
You might think that this would lead to a colourful hap-hazard mishmash of styles in the workplace, but in reality dress codes are an emergent phenomenon. If any one can wear anything the staff will ingeneral harmonise their dress codes as they take their cues from their workmates. Peer pressure and the need to fit inin the workplace means that the majority of people will wear roughly the same sort of dress. However the mavericks of the team have the flexibility to try something new. If it is successful it will be adopted by the rest of the team.
A good example is to look back at some of the trends seen at HMC Interactive, who have never had a dress code. The first development was the jeans-and-t-shirt combo, a classic choice. But the T-shirts quickly moved away from the big name brands and towards Threadless, a democratic internet driven design brand. The t-shirts were so creative, unusual and quirky, we would often get compliments on them, and they were a lot more unusual than a standard white T.
As the company got bigger, and the clients got more serious, HMC were able to adapt their dress to become more formal, getting smarter and smarter as the years went on. One nice touch was that each member of the team often wore a small splash of purple, in a stripe on a shirt or a pattern on a tie. What emerged was a completely harmonious team sense of belonging through an unwritten code that everyone had created together. We wear purple not because we have to but because we want to. Our colleagues are often surprised at how we maintain strong individuality whilst maintaining a coordinated look.
I am constantly surprised to see just how many large creative companies enforce dress code on their employees. They see it as a way to communicate a corporate identity. How your staff dress can go a long way to how you are perceived in the outside world. Dressing smartly and appropriately for work is seen as very important by a lot of people, and many people in large organisations find that certain clothes like hats are completely banned.
A business suit never goes out of fashion, and if we look at images of businessmen they barely change throughout the decades.
However, in a creative company, fashions often change faster than the HR department can update their codes. If you are a cutting edge company you need to be ableto quickly respond to small changes. Having staff display a little bit of cool every now and then can help clients identify with them. If your clients want the latest and greatest services, the staff should be free to express that in their dress code.
Individual expression through dress increases in importance as the size of the company increases. People need to be recognised and stand out from the rest of the pack. By encouraging this, staff are more likely to express their individuality in their work, and bring in additional creativity and personal flair.
You might think that this would lead to a colourful hap-hazard mishmash of styles in the workplace, but in reality dress codes are an emergent phenomenon. If any one can wear anything the staff will ingeneral harmonise their dress codes as they take their cues from their workmates. Peer pressure and the need to fit inin the workplace means that the majority of people will wear roughly the same sort of dress. However the mavericks of the team have the flexibility to try something new. If it is successful it will be adopted by the rest of the team.
A good example is to look back at some of the trends seen at HMC Interactive, who have never had a dress code. The first development was the jeans-and-t-shirt combo, a classic choice. But the T-shirts quickly moved away from the big name brands and towards Threadless, a democratic internet driven design brand. The t-shirts were so creative, unusual and quirky, we would often get compliments on them, and they were a lot more unusual than a standard white T.
As the company got bigger, and the clients got more serious, HMC were able to adapt their dress to become more formal, getting smarter and smarter as the years went on. One nice touch was that each member of the team often wore a small splash of purple, in a stripe on a shirt or a pattern on a tie. What emerged was a completely harmonious team sense of belonging through an unwritten code that everyone had created together. We wear purple not because we have to but because we want to. Our colleagues are often surprised at how we maintain strong individuality whilst maintaining a coordinated look.
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