There is a school of thought that business owners should shift their focus only to their employees’ working performance instead of caring about the companies’ dressing codes. While I understand the logic behind this viewpoint, I have to disagree with it for several reasons.
Those who believe that focusing on working performance is all that matters have several arguments. They may well argue that the ultimate goal of every company is profit. Therefore, staff members just need to concentrate on maintaining their productivity to maximize the output, thus helping the company to achieve their targets. This can be seen in a myriad of tech companies where developers or office technicians have to write codes. In this case, these employees mostly works with the app version and interact with users – their customers in this circumstance – through a computer screen, so wearing what they feel most comfortable with does not hinder them from doing their work at all.
Nevertheless, this point of view overlooks the jobs involving interacting directly with customers. Take receptionists for example, the job requires them to get smartly dressed because they have to greet company guests. Without a suitable dress code, they might leave an undesirable impression on customers, which could be associated with a lack of professional image for the whole company. Another point worth mentioning is that getting neatly dressed in the workplace can make people feel like they are supposed to be in a professional situation, which translates into the awareness that they are working and totally separated from the comfortability of their personal space. Accordingly, they are more likely to pay attention to their work instead of being distracted by their personal preferences.
In conclusion, although concentrating solely on the work quality is beneficial to a certain extent, I am convinced that employers should still take their companies’ dress code into consideration, especially for the jobs involving face-to-face interaction with customers.
