Dress sense is must to be a better professional
You have no dress code in your office
Does that give you a chance to go to your office in casuals because there is no dress code? Do you enter in to your office wearing denim, sports shoes and a tea shirt? I am sure you get few sweet comments while you enter in your office, but do you know that there are few negative comments also are passed, which you never get to hear. In fact, you are disturbing the office decorum and work environment by wearing casual dresses. That is not professional and not expected of you if you are in managerial capacity.
There may not be an official dress code in your organization and you may feel comfortable wearing casuals but if you would wear formals in your office that always makes a different working environment and you would be more impressive as a professional. In other words by not wearing proper dress while in your office you are simply breaking the rules. Wearing no proper dresses while in office makes your image of a bad employee. In fact, corporate culture demands you to be formal even if there are no written rules about it.
Body language
Your dress is one sure way of conveying your body language. According to management experts, especially who keep a close watch on human resources almost thirty percent of your conversation is through your appearance, body language and gestures; rest of it is through your conversation that shows that your dress is part of your body language, and as important and effective as your words. You should know that there are some messages, which you convey even without speaking them through you personality, gestures and appearance. So be very careful as to what you wear and appear in your work place to make yourself more impressive and important. However, this is for sure that you do not impress any one in first sight if you are not properly dressed and not the least if you are in casuals.
Companies keep a close watch
They may not reveal it but most of the companies keep a close watch on their employees to look at the results of impressions generated by dressing habits of their employees. They conduct it based on different departments of their company. The impact of dresses affects less when it comes to employees who are in departments where they do not have to interact much with outsiders but their colleagues only although this still makes a difference. The properly dressed employees even in such departments leave a better impression and are more effective.
The properly dressed seniors have a better command on their juniors than the ones who generally use casuals. Their impression on juniors reflects that they take them casually as well. The worst effected are the people in sales and marketing departments followed by service department where they come in contact with outsiders in regular basis. There are ample reasons to believe that an executive dressed properly received better response while at work compared to while the same executive in casual dresses. To be precise, even an average sales person in a proper outfit was better off while with a client than a more experienced salesperson in casuals. This indicates clearly that a formally clad professional is not only a better manager but also impresses his clients in a better way.
This may ruin your image
Trust me guys, casuals may ruin your image of a good professional and I know this being a marketing professional myself. I was also tempted to wear a casual dress some times and could feel the difference on that particular day. I always felt lesser attentive to my work but other activities and did not attract as much business while with juniors or clients. Actually casual dresses only reflect our attitude towards work and professional images. I have some interesting conclusions, which you may not like but are true.
Whenever I was part of an interview panel as a marketing head of my company I found one thing in common among the people who attended interviews for a post in marketing department that most fresh marketing graduates who appeared in casuals were casual in attitude also. They were lesser attentive and not as serious compared to the ones who were properly attired and looked more professional and alert. The body language of these two groups was also very different. I agree that some people might be as god in approach and performance even in casuals but the percentage certainly is too low to mention. There are certain fields where casual dressing does not make much of a difference on working environment of a particular company. These industries include creative arts, designing, illustration and entertainment.
Why so much fuss about dress-sense
No one is same at every place; he is a different person at different paces where he is present at the time he is being judged in this particular contest. The person is different while he is at work or while he is at a picnic spot with his family and friends. He might appear differently while he is out with his children in a park but the most important appearance that we are trying to discuss here is his dress while at his work place. This is not important that he should be dressed in formals even while he is out for fun that is entirely different matter and has nothing to do with his image as a professional.
Let us finish it with reaching to the conclusion that we cannot wear the same kind of dresses in every place. If we cannot wear funky, cool, casuals in our work place we certainly are not expected to wear them in places where we can find some of our would be clients and employers as well. There is nothing wrong if we use casuals while out for fun parties etc. The most important part of your dress is that you wear a right kind of a dress at a right place.
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