Reward Employees with Jeans at Work

By Rick Gibbs 

Wearing jeans at work may be covered in a company’s Professional Appearance Policies or Dress Code Policies. These policies typically address overall company guidelines on employee appearance.   

Even though such policies are recommended, I think allowing employees to wear jeans at work as an informal reward has a bit more power and a better effect on employees’ morale and productivity. 

Of course, jeans aren’t always conducive for work. Some places, such as settings where there’s client contact or there are people visiting the office, would require more professional attire. 

Another scenario would be in a healthcare setting. Most of these businesses don’t allow jeans for safety and sanitary reasons, plus there may be a uniform that employees are required to wear. 

In many small businesses situations where employees telecommute—doing all their business over the Internet or electronically—it might make less sense to have a formal dress code, so those are good situations to allow jeans at work. 

One company that I know in the technology field keeps big, furry slippers around the office for people to wear. This employer was quite interested in making their employees comfortable at work. It’s a clever idea, but probably wouldn’t work for every company.

Implementing An Appearance Policy 

1. Ask Yourself: Why do I want to do this?—Is this a circumstance where you’re having issues with your employees’ appearances? Is it something you would like to do for employees to reward them or to create a more casual work environment?
   
2. Use the “Business Necessity” Point Of View—You’ll want to structure your policy based on your business needs. Why do you have your current dress code? Do you have your dress code for the purposes of client meetings? Do your employees have a lot of client contact? Do your employees have to present a more business-like appearance on a day-to-day basis?
   
3. Write the Policy—Try to come up with wording that keeps the focus on the business necessities mentioned above. I tend to favor policies that are fairly general and that make a statement like, “We expect that all of our employees will always come to work dressed professionally, and we expect that this sort of dress will happen everyday.” Then give some examples of what is appropriate dress. Resist the urge to get extremely detailed—just list the basic items—and use caution if you split the list by men and women. Policies that appear to be directed at one group over another can raise issues related to discrimination.
   
   A personal preference of mine is not to generate huge lists of apparel because you’re getting into the realm of what particular people find stylish. Assume that professionals will make the right choices and will appreciate not being treated like junior high school students.
   
   However, you may want to include statements like, “Jeans must be clean, pressed, not ripped; no t-shirts with slogans on them, etc.” Also include a component, such as: “The company reserves the right to inform employees that their clothing is inappropriate and ask them to change if necessary.”

Advantages and Disadvantages of Wearing Jeans to Work
The major advantages are:

• Employees have a desire to wear jeans at work, and they overwhelmingly appreciate the chance to so it works well as an informal reward
• Jeans are comfortable, so it may be easier for employees to get work done if they feel comfortable, which could mean that comfort all the time may lead to greater productivity 

Some of the disadvantages could be:

• Some employees might take it too far and wear inappropriate jeans or wear their jeans with inappropriate shirts or shoes
• Jeans often don’t work in situations where employees deal with customers or clients, as people may find it inappropriate to be dealing with someone in that form of dress
• Trying to maintain a fine line between expecting professional dress and going too far over the line of dictating what people wear, and to the exclusion of other more important operational matters. I sometimes see companies get wrapped up in their dress code policies and it takes away their time for dealing with other matters of policy that may have more gravity 

Even if your policy does not contain specific language that allows wearing jeans to work, you can still allow jeans as an ad-hoc, informal reward. In my opinion, this approach has more impact than a statement in a policy that might be seen as an entitlement rather than a reward, based on a specific situation.

Wearing jeans at work may be covered in a company’s Professional Appearance Policies or Dress Code Policies.