The COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down. Despite the dislocation and immense challenges people have faced during the pandemic, many discovered a silver lining: the benefits of working remotely. But now things are starting to look right side up as many companies are starting to re-open their doors. Despite the rush to return to office normalcy, the idea that every worker needs to come into the office every day has been left in the pre-pandemic past. Some form of remote work is here to stay.
The shift toward remote work has also turned daily clothing choices inside out. In the shift to remote work, some workers soldiered on in their office uniform while others abandoned their professional look for more comfortable home attire. Workers likely tried every permutation of their wardrobe—moving from one extreme (suit and tie) to the other (sleepwear and athleisure). Many even tried the Zoom mullet (“Business on top, party on the bottom”), though the results are sometimes embarrassing.
With two years of working from home under our belts, there is still no clear solution for how to handle the work-from-home dress code. This choice is an important one—clothing choices are a critical component of how we think, behave and interact with others. Research shows that clothes not only influence how colleagues perceive each other, but the clothing an employee chooses to wear can change how they think or feel during the course of a day. Thus, it is essential that companies and their workers think critically about the office dress code, and get it right. The good news is that there’s now clear guidance that companies, managers and individual workers should consider in our new hybrid work reality.
Please select this link to read the complete article from Fast Company.