Casual Friday Nonsense
The client I am working at has a “Casual Friday” dress code policy. The rest of the week is business casual. What kind of Dilbertian school of management flunky thought this one up?
One story is that this was started by IBM, as a study on productivity. According to their results, people were more productive when dressed casually. Makes sense to me. I’ve heard people say there are studies that prove casual dress leads to lower productivity, but I have yet to see an actual, credible source of a study proving this. Isn’t it the job of a manager to know how productive their employees are?
The beef I have with “Casual Friday” is why is it only ok on Friday? If you make the productivity argument, are you making your employees more efficient one day of the week, or four? If dressing casually makes you less productive, why is fine to not be as productive on Friday as you are the rest of the week? Why not just not allow casual attire and only work half days on Fridays? It would be the same thing.
This leads to the question of if it is more comfortable. If so, why are you only allowing me to be comfortable only one day a week? If I'd prefer to not dress more casually I don't have to.
What about your “corporate image”? I can understand if you deal with customers at a professional level you may require business attire. I don’t really care how my banker, realtor, doctor or whatever is dressed, as long as they do a good job.
Here’s what I really don’t get about where I work: When the “Board of Commissioners” has their meetings, which can fall on a Friday, the casual Friday policy is suspended. Is it a secret that we can wear jeans on Friday?
Casual Fridays are nothing more than a bone that is thrown to employees to make their workweek a little less miserable. By allowing people to dress down one day a week you are saying “we care more about the way our employees look, and our corporate image, more than the happiness, productivity, and job satisfaction of our employees.”
One story is that this was started by IBM, as a study on productivity. According to their results, people were more productive when dressed casually. Makes sense to me. I’ve heard people say there are studies that prove casual dress leads to lower productivity, but I have yet to see an actual, credible source of a study proving this. Isn’t it the job of a manager to know how productive their employees are?
The beef I have with “Casual Friday” is why is it only ok on Friday? If you make the productivity argument, are you making your employees more efficient one day of the week, or four? If dressing casually makes you less productive, why is fine to not be as productive on Friday as you are the rest of the week? Why not just not allow casual attire and only work half days on Fridays? It would be the same thing.
This leads to the question of if it is more comfortable. If so, why are you only allowing me to be comfortable only one day a week? If I'd prefer to not dress more casually I don't have to.
What about your “corporate image”? I can understand if you deal with customers at a professional level you may require business attire. I don’t really care how my banker, realtor, doctor or whatever is dressed, as long as they do a good job.
Here’s what I really don’t get about where I work: When the “Board of Commissioners” has their meetings, which can fall on a Friday, the casual Friday policy is suspended. Is it a secret that we can wear jeans on Friday?
Casual Fridays are nothing more than a bone that is thrown to employees to make their workweek a little less miserable. By allowing people to dress down one day a week you are saying “we care more about the way our employees look, and our corporate image, more than the happiness, productivity, and job satisfaction of our employees.”
posted by DumbAscii at
7/28/2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home