How do you expect your employees to dress? More than likely you will have a different answer for employees who meet the public than employee who work in a shop and never see the public.
One of the most uncomfortable conversations I can remember having was with an otherwise excellent female employee who would wear dresses more appropriate for Saturday night dates than for the office.
It is unlikely that you can cover all contingencies but think through your various types of employees and put in writing how you expect them to dress. Do you require suits, sport coats, dresses or business casual? Do you have uniforms, company shirts or other job appropriate apparel: safety equipment such as steel toed shoes?
How do you expect your sales people, your office personal or your production employees to dress; professional or casual?
Are there job specific requirements? If you have an employee running manufacturing equipment you may not want them to wear loose clothing that can get caught in the machine or to wear jewelry while working on electrical systems. You may be amazed at the reluctance to sacrifice fashion to safety on the part of some employees.
I am not suggesting you go into such detail as length of skirts and color of shoes but describe what you expect in terms that are meaningful to you and they will likely be meaningful to your employees. If an employee pushes limits you have a basis to make corrections.
Your dress code may also include other personal grooming standards; hair neatly combed, no facial piercings, no visible tattoos for example if these thing are appropriate to the job. If a production worker has a tattoo on their face it may not impact their job. If a sales person that sells to the public has a nose ring it may indeed impact their job. Just be careful. In the politically correct society we live in that the requirements are job and not culturally related.
Original content (c) Thomas Robinson 2010
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