If you're reading this in a pair of jeans and flip-flops tucked under your office desk, be assured that your boss considers you to be at the height of creativity.
In a new survey, seven in 10 employers said that 'dress-down' days were having a beneficial effect on employee performance, while half believed that formal clothes had a negative impact on staff.
The number bosses reporting a positive effect on work performance is up from just over 50% five years ago.
Staff also believe that they reap the benefits of casual wear: the survey found that 88% felt more at ease in casual clothing and 63% found formal dress codes at work restricting.
Peter Done, managing director of employment consultancy Peninsula, who carried out the survey, said: "Dress-down days in the workplace are proving to be an effective tool for employers to increase productivity in the workplace, and are proving popular with employers and employees alike."
3 Responses
How about asking employees what they need to do a better job?
I certainly agree that dress down Friday will help productivity.
Will it rise 1%?? Why not do something which can raise productivity 30% or maybe even 400%?? You ask how?
The solution for bosses is to treat their employees as if they love them. Doing that is very simple. To treat them with love, regularly ask employees what they need to do a better job and then give it to them. Don’t give them orders (they are demeaning and disrespectful) or bureaucracy (the equivalent of more orders). Simply give them the support they want.
Besides, it is the boss’ job to provide; training, tools, procedures, policies, discipline, information, parts, material, and the like. Why not do your own job by providing what they need as they determine it. In the process, asking them to figure out the solutions to their problems helps develop their mental skills and to really take charge of their workplace. When you start this, they won’t believe it. After a short while if you continue, they will believe it and performance starts to skyrocket.
If the boss does the above, employees will unleash their full potential of creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment. Innovation will be rampant. As such, the business will be far more innovative and productive than competitiors, up to 4 times as much in my experience with the 1300 person unionized group.
It’s really very simple. Try it, you’ll like it.
Best regards, Ben
Author “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and Committed”
http://www.bensimonton.com
Key to creativity is newness
We have dress down all the time and I am not aware that I or my colleagues are any more creative here than we were in other firms where pin-stripe suits were the order of the day.
I believe that creativity is encouraged and fostered in an environment that challenges by jolting us out of the every day. Hence dress down once a week may well cause people’s thought processes to jump onto new rails.
I suggest that any way of starting people out of their routine would have the same effect.
Now I’m desperately trying to think of examples to use…. Help anyone?
Paula Woodcroft
Dress up and down
If it boosts productivity, why not dress down all the time? In fact, why not let people decide what to wear as oppose to dictating when to dress up/ down?