Dressing for success not always easy to define

DRESSING THE PART: Sheri Ispir, JWU director of experiential education and career services, tells students to “go formal first.” She's pictured above, center, with office assistant Marquis Cooper and education coordinator Ashley Evans. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
DRESSING THE PART: Sheri Ispir, JWU director of experiential education and career services, tells students to “go formal first.” She's pictured above, center, with office assistant Marquis Cooper and education coordinator Ashley Evans. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

There’s an old adage that professionals should dress for the job they want, not the job they have.
If that holds true, it could be assumed that a young professional who showed up for an internship wearing a T-shirt, shorts and flip flops might be looking to spend his career at the beach. Recently, however, that very thing happened with a college student looking to break into the news business.
“I address it immediately, but always think that someone must have failed them along the way if they think it’s OK to show up in the work world dressed like they were going to a cookout,” said Craig Borges, managing editor of The Sun Chronicle, a daily newspaper in Attleboro. Borges said he’s had more than one intern, and paid staff members, arrive for a first day in the newsroom in inappropriate work attire.
But determining appropriate work attire can be difficult for workers and easy to slip up on because office dress codes, formal and informal, are often left to interpretation. It can be especially problematic during summer months, when a desire to be comfortable and stay cool can outweigh that of dressing for success.
Eighty-one percent of respondents to a recent Providence Business News executive poll, a weekly survey of 70 business leaders representing small and large businesses across the state, said that their employees tend to dress more casually in hotter weather.
More than 92 percent said their office has a formal dress code. Slightly fewer than 58 percent said that dress code is business casual, while 11.5 percent said business dress is required at their office.
Approximately 23 percent said the code calls for “casual but neat.”
“I have a lot of employers talk about a problem with ‘business casual,’ ” said Judith Clare, director of the Amica Center for Career Education at Bryant University in Smithfield. “And that [involves] students not understanding what [the term] means. They forget the word ‘business’ is in there.”
That may be because the term is up for debate even among those trying to monitor and enforce office dress codes. A recent survey of chief information officers by Robert Half Technology, a New York technology-industry-services provider, reported that 66 percent of respondents said their office had a “somewhat formal” dress code, meaning dress slacks or skirt and button-down shirts.
But 25 percent of respondents said the dress code at their company was “somewhat casual,” meaning khakis and a sweater, and chances are that both ensembles could be worn by someone trying to dress ‘business casual.’
“That’s why we say that [our dress code] is business casual, but have guidelines within what we consider to be business casual,” said Ramona Nasir, manager of employment and employee integration at Amica Mutual Insurance’s human resources department in Lincoln. “We don’t just say that we have that and leave it at that,” she said.
For Amica, that means no jeans allowed but employees do not have to go as formal as to be wearing a suit or, for men, a suit jacket.
The Sun Chronicle, Borges said, has no formal dress code but that in the newsroom he emphasizes business casual.
To him, that means no jeans, sweatshirts or, of course, shorts and sandals.
A problem is that the newsroom is only one part of the business. There are employees at The Sun Chronicle whose duties and time in or out of the office vary on a daily basis.
“In newspapers particularly, there are different standards for different workers,” Borges said. Nasir said that issue is of concern at Amica, where some employees in the company’s service center work exclusively on the phone and during the evening and night shifts.
“In my mind, we split it between core hours and after-hours,” she said. “After a certain time, they are allowed to wear jeans. [Others are] really dressing to reflect Amica, since most of us have some kind of customer contact.”
Most Amica employees follow the guidelines, she says, as do job candidates.
“I haven’t seen [any candidates] in T-shirts and flip flops,” she said.
But are there companies, offices and jobs where that might be OK? The tech industry, for example, is known for dressing down, especially at small companies.
“I think the role that a company’s culture now plays can vary so much, not from industry to industry, but from company to company,” said Sheri Ispir, director of Experiential Education & Career Services at Johnson & Wales University at the school’s Providence campus. “[Our advice] is let someone tell you [not] to wear a jacket and tie. Always go formal first.”
There’s also the idea that it might be better to go formal – or casual formal – even if it isn’t required.
The Robert Half Technology survey found that 76 percent of CIOs feel that how well an employee dresses influences his ability to be promoted within an IT department.
Amy Guldhauge, treasurer at Starkweather & Shepley Insurance Brokerage Inc. in East Providence, who has secondary authority over her company’s dress code, said it’s typically younger employees who don’t follow the rules but that doing so doesn’t necessarily leave a permanent mark on their office standing.
“I’ve been told [in the past], maybe it’s time to spruce up the wardrobe a little bit, and that’s not a bad thing to say,” Guldhauge said. “I think if they were doing a good job we’d say, ‘We’d like you to wear a suit today.’ ”
Borges said less-than-impressive dress wouldn’t prohibit him from promoting an employee.
“Why not simply tell the person? They may be unaware that it’s an issue,” he said.
Clare said dressing in business attire says to the world that you are ready for work.
She and Ispir both called presenting yourself professionally as one of the so-called soft skills employers are looking for in new hires – especially recent graduates and even those who may balk at being judged on their appearance.
“I would say our students often feel frustrated and feel like it’s not fair,” Ispir said. “[But] you can’t control how what you wear is going to be perceived. Because of that ambiguity, it’s better to go overdressed. The odds are, you’re going to do better if you’re dressed professionally.” •

No posts to display