The company I’m working for has a new manager who wants to enforce our dress code as it is written. The written dress code is a generally smart appearance code, for example male members of staff like myself should be wearing a collared shirt and a tie though a full suit is not required.

I work in training and education and although we are not actually public facing, clients are sometimes brought into our office and shown around and this is the reason that our new manager wants to see everyone now adhere to the written dress code.

The issue is that the written dress code has never been previously enforced which was down to our previous manager who just did not enforce it and we have nearly all tended to dress more casually than what is written in the dress code. He has now retired and a new manager is in place.

She is very different from our previous manager, this is her first role as a manager, she is young and seems very enthusiastic to make changes though I don’t mean to put her down at all because of that, I actually give her credit for moving up into management at a young age. She has told us about some other changes she wants to make as new managers normally do, though the dress code seems to be a priority.  She told us that a three week period of grace will be given and then the written dress code needs to be adhered to.

She was asked about if anyone does not comply following the grace period, she said that she hoped that everyone will willingly start complying through the given grace period, though if anyone is still not complying they will then be disciplined. I was a bit shocked by this but that could be due to our previous manager, I can’t recall him ever taking anyone through a discipline procedure when there were a few times when he probably should have done. I’ll admit that he was too easy going and I guess I just got used to it.

I am one of the older male members of staff and I have previously worked to smart dress codes many years ago, though I’m currently dressing more casually than the written dress code. I would have thought there should be more of a consultation with us around enforcing this change though some of my colleagues actually feel that our manager is being quite fair as these are just existing dress code rules that we are now being told to adhere to and they feel that by allowing a grace period, we are being allowed time to adjust.

I would like to hear the views anyone has on this, I may be getting worked up over nothing, but do you feel she is being fair to enforce our dress code this way? Is it also right to go as far as disciplining people if they are not complying?

Gee