Unit 7: Culture Diversity - Reading

HOW CASUAL IS TOO CASUAL?       Thirty years ago or so, most people in the United States, Canada, and Europe didn’t think much about what to wear to work in an office. Men always wore suits and ties. Women wore suits or conservative skirt outfits. But in the 1990s, that started to change.       It began with “casual Fridays”. During the summer, some companies invited their employees to “dress down”, or wear more casual clothes to work on Fridays. The policy quickly became popular with employees. After this, it didn’t take long for employees to start dressing more casually every day of the week.       Many employees welcomed the new dress policy and the more comfortable work environment that came with it. Etiquette had definitely changed, and suits and ties were rarely seen in many offices. Some employees went as far as wearing jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers to the office. Many people felt that casual clothes made the workplace a friendlier place. Co-­workers were more relaxed with each other. People enjoyed coming to work knowing it was a comfortable place to be.       Then some people began to change their minds about casual dress at work. Many managers felt that casual dress had led to casual attitudes toward work. Some people started to notice an increase in employees being late for work. If “clothes make the man”, as the saying goes, then casual clothes make a casual person become less committed to company productivity and quality.       One of the biggest reasons why there have been such mixed opinions about dressing down is that there is no real standard for appropriate casual dress. Is it shorts, T-shirts, brightly coloured tops, and flip-flops? Is it designer jeans, polo shirts, and trendy sneakers? Is it khakis and sport jackets? Or are Hawaiian shirts and torn jeans OK? Without casual dress code policy, the etiquette for dress in many companies is beginning to change back to more formal business attire - a style that everyone understands.