Dressing For Success, 2002 Style
By Jeanette M. Coon, A.I.C.I.
On March 11, the news was heard round the world that investment bank Lehman Brothers, New York, was reversing its corporate casual dress policy and reverting back to a more polished dress code. For men, business dress was specified as a suit and tie, and for women, a suit with either a skirt or slacks, a dress or other equivalent attire for employees who normally contact clients during their business day.
The company is continuing its flexible dress policy the option to wear either business attire or more casual clothing for back-office employees and for everybody on Fridays during the summer.
Rumors are rampant as to whether other major financial firms Bear, Stearns, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America will soon follow suit.
Lehman Brothers is not the first company to move back to more appropriate dressing for business. The results of a recent survey by the Mens Apparel Alliance (MAA) indicated that almost one in five corporations has reinstituted a formal business dress code policy within the past year. According to this survey of senior-level executives at more than 200 companies nationwide with more than $500 million in annual revenue, 56 percent maintain a business attire policy that mandates suits, dress shirts and ties.
MAAs survey also reported that executives polled believed a switch from strictly casual to a professional business dress code would result in an average 3.6 percent productivity gain. 17 percent of those surveyed indicated that productivity would improve as much as 40 percent if a business dress code were implemented in the workplace.
The survey tells us the mood in our economy is to be more serious and also that corporate America now realizes its time to return to the standard of dressing better. People are concerned about their jobs.
When the economy was booming, and companies were always looking for more people, people were more carefree in their business dress. Now, unemployment is high, and people with jobs are worried. Even in a business casual environment, image is more important. It differentiates one employee from another.
Is business casual dead? Do I see companies suddenly dropping business casual? I dont think so. But what I do see is theyre adopting professional casual. Its slightly more formal than business casual. It gives people a more polished, professional image while taking advantage of more relaxed fashions that combine comfort with style.
One of the reasons the business casual concept did not work better was because it was never clearly defined in the first place. Everybody had their own interpretation of what was business casual. Companies, themselves, need to be specific. The employees need to be educated.