Human Resource Management Implications Dress Codes at Workplaces - Essay Example

?HRM Implications – Dress s at Workplaces Introduction to Case A recently published report of Weigal highlights the different perspectivesof companies towards dress codes at workplaces. The case starts with the statement of Sally Morrison who is the associate manager at Career Partners 3, which is a job search and career coaching company. Morrison is of the opinion that only business attire can lead the workers to achieve a level of professionalism and the casual dresses at workplaces lead the people to indulge in a more casual behaviour. At Career Partner 3, employees are only allowed to wear “business only” dresses. Many of the companies allow casual Fridays however, Morrison’s office does not allow casual on any day of the working week. Morrison argues that formal dress code is more important for the companies who have front-line client dealing and if a company does not have any such dealing then in that case ditching the suits may boost the morale of employees. Therefore, Career Partners 3 has been following “business only” trend for years. On the other hand, HR Solutions Incorporation has recently changed the dress code from business casual to casual dresses. HR Solutions is a Chicago-based international human resources pollster. The representative of company, Amelia Forczak argues that when employees are given free choice to wear anything, it shoes the level of trust on the employees and it also empowers the staff and improves their efficiency. Forczak argues that the recent decision of adopting business casual to casual dress code has been taken after conducting the internal surveys. The recent internal survey of the company has shown that rather than dressing up casually on Friday only, employees are more comfortable in wearing casual every day. At HR Solutions, preference is given to the workers on what they want to ensure to achieve the productivity. Forczak argues that if by only changing wardrobe of workers which is not difficult to implement, the company can achieve a quick win then what else the company wants. However, Forczak has also highlighted the point that if companies are not having direct dealing with employees then they can be provided relaxations in dress codes to make them feel more comfortable. Moreover, Forczak considers it as a good practice in leadership to keep up a affinity with the workers. Therefore, Forczak is very satisfied from the decision of changing dress code. A study conducted by HR Solutions in 2011 suggests that out of the total employees only 27 percent of employees at workplace are actively involved and the remaining 73 percent of employees are either recognised as “actively disengaged” or “ambivalent”. In May 2010, when the company conducted a poll it was found that 55 percent of employees were of the view that they did not have a traditional dress code and 44 percent said they had to wear suits and ties. In this essay, the HRM models and concepts will be used to analyse whether the move from business casual dress code to casual dress code at HR Solutions is a suitable move for the company. HRM Implications Dress code is an important aspect of corporate culture and when it comes to decide whether a casual or a formal dress code is suitable for a company, various opinions come on screen. A recently conducted survey findings suggest that 41 percent of the companies believe that workers who are dressed more professionally are more likely to be promoted as compared to the workers who are not dressed professionally and this figure may vary based on industry such as in financial services, 55 percent of the companies have this opinion (Haefner, 2008 cited in Cardon & Okoro, 2009). Dress codes appear to be a major focus of service organisations where the employees directly interact with the customers. Billions of dollars are being spent by service organisations on defining, acquiring, managing and monitoring the dresses of employees and manuals of these company contain detailed illustrations about the dresses ranging from uniform specifications to general dress codes (Rafaeli, 1993, pp.182). These organisations believe that appearance of the employees at workplace reflect something about organisations. Buckley (1983 cited in Gurovitsch & Prince, 2009) argues that analysing an individual’s dressing was the most effective method of changing other individual’s perceptions of that individual’s physical appearance. Career Partners 3 also appears to be one of the companies which consider wearing formal dresses as a way to achieve professionalism. On the other hand, the other view suggests that casual and informal dresses allow the workers to work in a comfortable condition. It is not necessary that employees should be given complete freedom to wear any sort of dress at workplace, however, rather than restricting the employees to wear “business only dresses” they can be allowed to follow a casual dress code. This is what happening at HR Solutions where employees have been asked to follow a casual dress code rather than a business dress code. Many of the top performing organisations have adopted both the casual and formal dress codes. American Express, PepsiCo and General Motors have adopted a casual dress code (Lilly, 2003 cited in Nielsen) whereas; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and J.P Morgan have adopted full-time casual dress codes (News.com, 2003 cited in Nielsen). In short, both kinds of practices have been observed in successful organisations, which make the followers confused about the right dress code practices at workplaces. Being an important component of corporate culture, dress code plays a significant role in determining the level of formality and informality in an organisational culture. In human resource management, the concepts of behavioural informality and behavioural formality have been introduced. Behavioural formality and informality have a third influence on intra-organisational processes after reengineering and empowerment. When the atmosphere of workplace is characterised by practice and routine, defined policies about how to behave and impersonal impassiveness is known as behavioural formality whereas, when the atmosphere of workplace is characterised by flippant attitude, naturalness, and interpersonal acquaintance, it is known as behavioural informality (Williams, 2010, pp.345). Career Partners 3 is showing a behavioural formality and HR Solutions is reflecting behavioural informality. Williams (2010, pp.345) has defined four factors based on which the organisations can achieve behavioural formality and behavioural informality. These factors include language usage, conversational turn taking and topic selection, emotional and proxemic gestures and physical and contextual cues. The formal or informal attire (e.g. clothes and shoes) is one of the factors that can influence the behavioural formality and informality at workplaces and falls in the category of physical and contextual cues. When companies adopt causal dresses approach, they also need to adopt casual dress policies and open office systems and by employing these two strategies, they tend to increase behavioural informality within workplace atmosphere. Therefore, through pursuing a change from business dress code to casual dress code, HR Solutions Inc is achieving informality in workplace behaviour. On the other hand, companies emphasising on formal attire have a different perspective. The corporate perspective suggests that the workers who are professionally dressed are expected to develop better impressions with clients, customers and colleagues therefore; many companies have developed dress codes to achieve the advantages of professionally appearing. Career Partners 3 is consistent with their “business only” dress code which means that they were previously having behavioural formality and they are satisfied with their formal corporate culture. The suitability of casual or formal attire at HR Solutions Inc can be also analysed in the light of hard and soft rules in human resource management. Hard view emphasies on cost or resource aspect whereas, soft view focuses on human-input aspect (Loosemore, Dainty & Lingard, 2003, pp.36). Hard view of human resource management emphasises on strategic integration of human resource management with business goals (Legge 1995, pp.66 cited in Koster, 2007, pp.6) and employees are considered as means to attain objectives of the organisations therefore, they are managed and controlled strictly by quantitative performance management approaches (Koster, 2007, pp.6). The companies which have adopted a professional dress code system based on the fact that formal dress code brings a level of professionalism in employees usually pursue hard rules. Implications of hard rules can be also found in the case of Career Partners 3. The company is more focusing on resource aspect and aims to achieve the organisational goals by keeping a desirable level of corporate atmosphere for their clients. At Career Partners 3, employees comfort with respect to dress code stands after the organisation image and culture. On the other hand, soft rules allow the company to bring flexibility in the organisational processes so as t facilitate the employees and to increase their productivity and efficiency. When soft roles in HRM are discussed with respect to corporate culture, the concepts of flexibility and commitment also become significant. The concept of corporate culture management is perceived to be very significant because it unlocks the consensus of management on flexibility and commitment. Flexibility is considered as a prize for workers because removing restrictions can improve the productivity of workers (Storey, 2007, pp.11). Moreover, flexibility at workplace leads to employee commitment therefore, developing a corporate culture that encourages the people to achieve organisational goals. The change from business dress code to casual wear at HR Solutions Inc shows that company is focusing on soft rules to manage corporate culture. Rather than focusing on how the organisational culture can be improved by keeping a uniform professional workplace atmosphere, company is focusing on what makes the employees comfortable. The internal surveys conducted by the company also reflect the interest of management in understanding and opinions of employees towards dress code. The preferences of companies for the hard or soft rules in human resource management approaches vary. Based on the above discussion, it has been analysed that Career Partners 3 has adopted hard rules of human resource management to monitor and control the organisational processes. The corporate culture of the company characterises behavioural formality. Since company has been pursuing behavioural formality as evident from the consistent behaviour towards “business only” dress code, therefore, it can be argued that company has been able to develop and maintain the desirable level of professionalism in its corporate culture. Moreover, it has been analysed that at Career Partners 3, the employees have high level of interaction with the customers; therefore, dress code becomes a true reflection of professionalism. On the other hand, HR Solutions is seeking to achieve behavioural informality as evident from the recent dress code change at the company. The company appears to consider soft rules of human resource management as more effective to achieve employee motivation, commitment and productivity as evident from the statements of Forczak. However, one statement of Forczak has highlighted that the recent move has been taken after considering the fact that HR Solutions does not have direct dealing with customers and the decision has been taken after conducting the internal survey and after knowing the opinions of employees. If HR Solutions would have been a company where level of employees and customers’ interaction would have been high, then company might not have brought this change. In the light of above analysis, it can be concluded that different companies have different perspectives towards dress codes at workplaces. However, it can be generally assumed that organisations where level of interaction between employees and customers is high, a formal and professional dress code can better work. On the other hand, when employees do not have direct customers dealing then they can be made more comfortable to boost their morale and empowerment. The decisions of company to achieve behavioural formality or informality and to view the hard or soft rules of human resource management should be also based on the nature of business. In short, such decisions should not be taken in isolation. Moreover, when it comes to talk about dress code and physical appearance of employees, decisions should be only made after taking the opinions and feedback of the workers. Bibliography Cardon, PW & Okoro, EA 2009, Professional Characteristics Communicated by Formal Versus Casual Workplace Attire, Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 3, pp. 355-360. Gurovitsch, M & Prince, N 2009, Effect of Attire on Service Quality in Midwestern Department Stores, viewed 12 March, 2011, < http://www.psych.umn.edu/sentience/files/Gurovitsch_2009.pdf>. Koster, M 2007, Human Resource Management Versus Personnel Management, GRIN Verlag, Germany, pp.6 Loosemore, M, Dainty, A & Lingard, H 2003, Human Resource Management in Construction Projects, Routledge, London and New York, pp.36 Nielsen, D, Dress for Success Measurement, viewed 12 March, 2011, < http://www.behavioural-safety.com/articles/Dress%20For%20Success%20Measurement.pdf>. Rafaeli, 1993, Dress and Behaviour of Customer Contact Employees: A Framework for Analysis, Advances in Services Marketing and Management, vol. 2, pp. 175-211. Storey, J 2007, Human Resource Management: A Critical Text, Edition 3, Cengage Learning EMEA, London, pp.11 Williams, C 2010, Management, Edition 6, Cengage Learning, United States of America, pp.345 Weigel, J 2011, Office Dress Codes, viewed 12 March, 2011, < http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-28/features/ct-tribu-weigel-casual-friday-20110228_1_casual-dress-dress-code-suits-and-ties>. Appendix Office dress codes Does casual attire unite or divide your office? Our experts vary on whether a professional look is necessary for a professional workplace. February 28, 2011|By Jen Weigel | Lessons for life Ever been fascinated by a co-worker's attire? Maybe they push the boundaries just enough to tempt you to buy that leather skirt? Or does their casual Friday ensemble leave you wondering if they even own a mirror? "There's a difference between casual and sloppy," says Sally Morrison, associate manager of Career Partners 3, a job search and career coaching firm. "It's surprising to me what some people think is appropriate." Morrison says at her office the dress code has always been "business only." "I think that when you allow casual dress, some people start to be more casual in the way they approach their work," says Morrison. "I'm not saying people have to keep their jackets on all day long, but there's a level of professionalism that comes with wearing the appropriate attire. It garners more respect. If you are dealing with clients, I think this is very important." So important that Morrison's office doesn't allow casual Friday. "If you do it one day a week, then people might get relaxed about the other days," she explains. "It's just not something we think is appropriate with our work environment." But if you don't have clients coming in and out of your doors, it might be worth ditching the suits to give your company morale a boost. "Our entire office just switched from business casual to casual for our dress code," says Amelia Forczak of HR Solutions Inc., a Chicago-based International human resources pollster. "When people are free to wear what they choose it's a benefit, and the absence of a dress code signifies that workers are trusted to dress as they feel appropriate. This is empowering to the employee and can improve the efficiency of your staff." According to a 2011 HR Solutions study, only 27 percent of employees are actively engaged. The remaining 73 percent is divided between being "ambivalent" (60 percent) and "actively disengaged" (13 percent). Another poll conducted in May of 2010 asked if workers have a traditional dress code. 55 percent said they did not have a code, while 44 percent were putting on suits and ties. "It's key to know what's important to your workers to ensure you are getting productivity," says Forczak. "We do internal surveys at our office and after a recent survey, we found that being able to dress casually everyday instead of just on Fridays was a top priority, so we made the switch." Forczak says the wardrobe change is what they call a "quick win"—a change in protocol that isn't difficult to implement and creates instant results within the work environment. "If you don't deal with clients every day and wearing a suit won't change the way your workers do their jobs, why not make the workers feel the most comfortable?" says Forczak. "It's always a good thing in leadership to keep up a rapport with your employees. We find this is a great way to do this." Should the employers or the employees make the wardrobe guidelines? Let us know! Read More