I walked into a nice restaurant the other day and was appalled by what one of the waitresses was wearing. Her shirt was sleeveless and low cut and her skirt was several inches too short. She also had visible tattoos on her upper arm and lower back. Overall she looked out of place, since the other servers were dressed rather conservatively as one would expect.

Summer is fast approaching and unfortunately this often means employees entering the workplace with less clothing. This change in seasons is a good time to reinforce your company’s dress code.

The purpose of a dress code is to ensure that employees dress in a manner that represents your company well. The standards of dress can be different depending on the industry, but it is important to keep in mind the image you want your employees to portray.

Either for safety or professional reasons, summertime staples such as shorts, tank tops and flip flops are not appropriate in most working conditions. You may also want to consider the number of tattoos or piercings you will allow your employees to show. Sending out a memo, flyer, or email to employees reminding them of appropriate dress at work can help you avoid uncomfortable conversations with employees about showing too much skin.

Having an established dress code policy will ensure that your employees continue to represent your company well throughout the summer months.

Samantha Bushard is an HR employee for the Idaho office of A Plus Benefits, Inc.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 9:31 am and is filed under Customer Service, Human Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.