A Study on Workplace Attire in Indian Corporate
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International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences www.ijetmas.com September 2014, Volume 2 Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476 A Study on Workplace Attire in Indian Corporate Amit Singh (Asst Prof), Mrs Smita R Kenneth (Asst Prof) Department of Business Administration, SRGI Jhansi,UP ABSTRACT Clothing or attire conveys a message, which is unconsciously yet immediately picked up by people ones meet. A simple and inconspicuous outfit while generally accepted maybe considered too loud for certain places and occasions. Such is the magnitude of dressing sense that people tend to gauge persona and merit according to the outfit. Although it may have an excellent grasp of what to wear in social gatherings and general get-togethers, official or business attire can get employees confounded. Unlike the common misconception, business attire doesn’t always mean a formal one. It may include evening wear and also be the casual business attire for those official. The office casuals however, differ from regular casuals but are definitely not formals and party dressing is formal but not like the general formals. It goes without saying that appearance matters a lot and more so in the corporate arena. people attire is most often considered a reflection of their personality and consequently of their work style. It makes a statement about both how a person feel about himself/herself and what people can expect from a professional. The purpose of this study is to analyze the workplace dress code that should consider appropriate by employers and employees at workplace. Keywords:- Appearance, Business Attire, Dress code, Dressing sense, Employers & Employees. INTRODUCTION Society’s standards (or lack thereof) regarding clothing and grooming have certainly changed over the last 50 years. Taking a trip on an airplane used to mean “dressing up” and wearing the kind of clothes you would wear to church ― a suit and tie or a dress and heels. Now people fly in sweatpants and sneakers and regularly wear jeans to church. Some employees would happily wear nothing but sweatpants or jeans to work if their employers would let them. For some employees, personal appearance ― including hairstyle, jewelry, tattoos, piercings, and head coverings as well as clothing ― is a form of self-expression. Religious mandates can also affect an employee’s appearance. Employers are confronted not only with excessively casual appearance but also with other extremes: looks that are too suggestive, too political, too dangerous, too bizarre. What’s “slightly sexy” to one person can be “downright vulgar” to another. So what’s an employer to do? How far can you go in regulating your employees’ appearance? Generally, a company can enforce a dress code and standards related to employee appearance. However, employees must follow some legal restrictions and acknowledge some commonsense considerations when adopting, revising, or enforcing a dress code. 37 Amit Singh, Mrs Smiths R Kenneth International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences www.ijetmas.com September 2014, Volume 2 Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476 Dress codes that require gender-stereotypical appearance for women and men do not affect all people to the same degree. Indeed, for most gender conforming men and women, the typical sex-based dress code policy is unobjectionable. For others, however, having to appear stereotypically feminine or stereotypically masculine is so discordant with their identities that it may result in a total inability to remain employed in a particular workplace. The power, therefore, of the anti-differentiation approach to equality for dress code challenges is that the discrimination in a dress code policy "inheres in the not in its impact on any group or class." LITERATURE REVIEW “The way you look directly affects the way you think, feel, and act . When you dress down, you sit down—the couch potato trend. Manners break down, you begin to feel down, and you’re not as effective” (Kaplan-Leiserson, 2000, p. 39). Stephen Goode (2000, p. 4) states the findings of research psychologist, Jeffery L. Magee, that “Continually relaxed dress leads to relaxed manners, relaxed morals and relaxed productivity” and “leads to a decrease in company loyalty and increase in tardiness.” Dolbow suggests that the accepted casual dress in the office workplace is causing “casual attitudes and a lack of office decorum” (2000, p. 10). There are benefits to wearing casual clothing in the workplace, such as good morale, open communication between managers and employees, and a lack of cost to the employer (Gutierrez & Freese, 1999, p. 35-36). However, Gutierrez and Freese also note that the “professional image may be weakened if clients feel employees are too casual to be entrusted with their business.” Whether or not employers are aware of an effect in job performance because of casual dress is unknown. This problem was categorized as developmental research because it “focuses on the change and process of human development . .” by examining “aspects of behavior in particular sociocultural contexts” (Brown, Cozby, Kee, & Worden, 1999, p. 9). “There once was a time when a person could walk into the office of a manager, account executive, or salesperson and expect to see the individual behind the desk adorned in crisply pressed suits with starched white shirts. It was something that was not open to discussion but rather ingrained in American culture that certain dress was considered appropriate in those professions” (McPherson, 1997, p. 134). However, since the beginning of the 1990s, a change has been occurring called casual dress (Biecher, Keaton, & Pollman, 1999). There are a variety of reasons as to why this adoption of dress has happened. Some sources state only the factual evidences for the implementation. “Casual Fridays were introduced, experts say, to improve morale among cynical white-collar folks who saw their coworkers falling like flies during the layoffs of the 1980s and early 1990s. Generally, the casual look was never meant to replace traditional Monday-through-Thursday business attire” (McPherson, 1997, p. 134). Sweeney (1999, p. 38) used the words of Michael Zolnierczyk, director of sales and marketing at Model Apparel, Charleroi, Pennsylvania, who said “the casual dress movement began about five years ago in Los Angeles with such companies as Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne.” Other resources say that “the birth of dress-down days is . credited, in part, to the high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley of California that, when they started 30 years ago, hired primarily people from blue- 38 Amit Singh, Mrs Smiths R Kenneth International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences www.ijetmas.com September 2014, Volume 2 Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476 collar backgrounds” (Gutierrez & Freese, 1999, p. 32). More than one source believes that this is the case, because Kaplan-Leiserson (2000, p. 38) states, “we could thank (or blame) the Internet age . It’s generally agreed that casual days started on the U.S. West Coast, where computer companies allowed programmers to dress comfortably to encourage creativity. Like the Internet, the casual trend spread.” Despite this more objective approach to the whole issue of casual business dress, there are those who feel that the change has been for a variety of subjective reasons. “Casual dressing may be the result of two distinct trends: a return to elegance as a way of conveying professionalism, and a loosening up of formal dress codes, as demonstrated by casual Fridays and dress-down days” (Biecher, et al., 1999, p. 17). “The dress-down movement is as symbolic as it is the result of indulgent management. Its roots are traceable to the egalitarian movement that began permeating industry in the early 1980s, leading to the current ideas of ‘teamwork’ and ‘empowerment.’ The idea was to reduce or eliminate class distinction regardless of one’s rank, salary, or corporate position” (p. 18). Kaplan-Leiserson (2000, p. 39) quotes Judith Rasband, director of the Conselle Institute of Image Management, as having said, “The business casual trend isn’t about fashion. It’s about the whole casualization of America that began in the turbulent 1960s. It’s about the general decline in civility.” “The dress- down mood here may be connected to the volatility of the job market in the last few years. You cannot sustain a high dress code during a period of instability” (McPherson, 1997, p. 135). Overall, the outstanding consensus is that there has been a rise in casual dress in the recent past. “In the past 10 years, the trend toward dress-down Fridays and dress-down every days has spread through the corporate world” (Gutierrez & Freese, 1999, p. 32). METHODOLOGY . “Our employees are the ambassadors of the organization and their attire reflects the culture at their workplace,” said S Varadarajan, executive president, human resources, Tata Teleservices Limited. The employers expect at interviews or at workplace is a standard dress code. Some Companies, or parties or even clubs sometime have what is called a 'dress code' which is nothing but a style of dressing considered appropriate at that place.eg) Normal office dress codes suggest Formal trousers and shirts for men from monday through thursday, and smart casuals on fridays.Asking someone to follow the dress code appropriately would mean asking them to dress according to the manner suggested by the place.At place of work Casual and funky look only represents careless or carefree attitude, which makes employee undeserving for the job. It is expected from employees that they remain simple and most importantly dignified, which automatically conveys that they are calm, passionate and intelligent enough to handle the job. It is better to let the dress do the talk before they do, at the work place. The purpose of the study is to analyze general Formal business attire for employees (both males and females) defined in many Indian organizations and describe basic guideline for workplace attire.