In my consulting and contracting career, I have worked with 50 plus small and mid-sized manufacturing companies and with General Motors. Hotly contested issues in manufacturing and other industrial concerns include quality, production standards, employee empowerment and employee involvement, overtime distribution, safety standards, non-draconian supervision, and, believe it or not, employee dress codes.
To summarize in a nutshell, company managers are concerned that visiting customers will judge the quality of the product by the attire of the employees who build or make them. Employees demand a comfortable work environment because they are generally doing physical labor. All parties want to ensure employee safety so boots with stiletto heels on a metal grated walking platform won't fly. (Yes, an actual encounter with a totally ticked off employee when I told her she couldn't wear them to work.)
So, a dress code in manufacturing, construction, assembly, or skilled trades is a challenge. You want standards but you don't want a straight jacket. My fun story involves do-rags. In one company, many of the men, and even some of the women, wore a do-rag to work every day. My senior executive in charge of manufacturing seriously objected to how they looked at work and in the presence of customers. Making this remark to a group of employees, he almost caused a strike.
I arrived at the office to find 19 employees lined up by my office with a petition in hand. They wanted me to understand why banning do-rags was a bad idea. Turns out, as I conversed with the group, the majority wore do-rags because they only wanted to have to shave their heads weekly and thought the head covering better than stubble. The women said the do-rags kept their hair clean and out of their eyes.
The defining issue was the need for a head covering. We worked out a compromise that pleased both employees and management. The company purchased several company-logoed baseball caps for every employee and the do-rags disappeared. (Importantly, no one was able to identify a religious or health reason for wearing them, so the baseball caps solved the problem to everyone’s satisfaction.)
Interested in images? Take a look at my photo gallery that illustrates both industrial dress and the use of safety equipment in the workplace.
Image Copyright Neustockimages
More About Work Dress Codes
- Business Casual Dress Code.
- Photographs of Business Casual Attire.
- Photographs of Business Formal Attire.
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