What are your views on dress codes at the moment?

Ours is pretty relaxed - even for front facing roles (we are a Theatre), where jeans and trainer type footwear is fine (no extreme, styles e.g. rips, tears, super tight or super loose etc). I will wear a smart work dress/shoes if I have a meeting with an external person, but otherwise I am dark jeans or linen trousers and Sketchers. I've certainly found that since the pandemic, people are more relaxed in terms of dress which I think is a good thing.

Hi Alyson
In our office pre-Covid we were business wear Monday-Thursday and then casual on a Friday. Since coming back we've relaxed it a lot and almost everybody wears jeans/jumpers/converse etc on a daily basis now. We still ask staff to observe the fact it is a work environment (in the summer a few staff members were wearing extremely short dresses or shorts) but other than that we've scrapped imposed business wear almost entirely.

I agree that dress codes have relaxed a lot in the last couple of years, and smart trainers are now acceptable in a lot of workplaces, including mine. I have also noticed this being the case at industry events. Can you have a look at what your competitors or similar companies to yours are doing? Photos on their website or social media may help if they have these.

Thank you, this is very interesting and what I have suspected going off events I've been too. A lot of our competitors have all of their staff in uniform but we would like to see people being able to have their own individual clothes.

We don't actually have a policy and the reason is that we are all adults and then someone has to police it (normally HR!).

I dont know if you are all on site, or some form of hybrid

But I think dress codes are under huge pressure from hybrid working (he says here sat at home wearing jean shorts in November)

If people can be sat at home in "casual" dress do they really need to dress up to come into the office - and if so is this just another barrier to onsite working along with inconvenience and cost? If one of points (for those with hybrid working) of getting people back together is collaboration and cooperation then does dress really matter?

Clearly if you are 100% site based then different consideration might apply but not entirely...

Thanks Keith, we have a small amount of hybrid workers but the majority are office based and prefer to be in the office but I get your point, the office would be even more appealing with a more casual dress.

I agree it does help with making the office more appealing. It can be small things. I cycle to the station and pre covid always wore trainers and carried my shoes or kept them in the office. Now I can wear smart trainers and dispense with the need to carry (and remember!) shoes. It's also easier to wear a smartish jacket that I can cycle in, but pre covid I would not have felt was smart enough for the office. Recently when there were storms even my normally smartly dressed senior colleagues arrived wearing raincoats rather than formal coats!

Do you have any evidence that your customers are put off by wearing trainers or hoodies?

If you don't have any such evidence, what is the point of a dress code?

Guilty as charged. :-) I wear converse and vans and how I dress is really a reflection of the client culture, type of business and what activities I'm doing that day.

Most of my clients have a business casual dress code but tend to leave it to their people to interpret that. I'm not saying there are not raised eyebrows when someone comes in in an outfit they don't like but someone might mention it and it's not often HR's job to do it.

I have even worked in companies where dress codes vary across locations with one location having jeans as standard and another office only having jeans on a Friday.

Personally, I'd go with broad parameters and any role specific rules. With the exception of health and safety requirements or environments where all staff have a uniform, I find a bit of leeway helps.

No one wants to get school vibes from the workplace unless it's clearly the culture and then people can make an active choice about joining.