Need help getting Gen Z hires to dress better at work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

Correlation vs causation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

Correlation vs causation.

it is enough evidence for me to stop using them until more research is done

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

Correlation vs causation.

it is enough evidence for me to stop using them until more research is done

For a generation or two, the far majority of black women used relaxers (yes, hard for young millennial and Gen Z to believe but it is true) sp it is hard to determine of relaxers caused any of our health issues beyond the scabs relaxers sometimes caused. We don't want to encourage a teens of our govt banning things because it does not understand the distinction between causation and correlation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

I a, 60 and never wore make up to work. That is an insane expectation.

I have rosacea and never wore make up either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

Correlation vs causation.

True. Quite a lot of health research looks like this — with quite sophisticated statistical methods used to attempt to isolate particular variables and combinations of variables.

The quite expensive and highly unethical alternative would involve isolating a large group of women (increasing statistical power). Making sure that all of the factors in their lives were as similar as possible. Then giving one group relaxers, and, over the decades, noting their health issues, comparing them with the group not given relaxers. Repeating this multiple times would approach causation and take several decades.

Personally I’d rather braid my hair, go with twists, or risk having someone view my natural hair — even in a ponytail— as “unprofessional “.

[Anonymous]

You need a dress code. Consult HR and Legal.

Here is Disney's: https://cepfranco.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/disney-look-book.pdf

[Anonymous]

Design professor here and HOO BOY do I feel this down to the policing bodies comment (which I have to be very careful about).

I find that I can give advice 10 times in 10 ways essentially saying the same thing (dress professionally, don't expose too much, read the tone of the firm/room cause it's also bad to wear a navy suit and dress shoes to a fintech startup, dress in a way that people will remember you fondly or not remember you negatively, etc...) and 3/4 of the people will get it but the 1/4 that don't are never going to change and they probably have varying reasons for that.

I would advise you to bring in an outside source to give a professionalism lecture to your new hires (or maybe include all "early career professionals" to broaden the scope). It sometimes seems more serious and less personal when someone else is saying "probably don't show your belly button to clients" as opposed to you saying it, which may seem like a suggestion. If you can't afford that consider putting together a panel with slightly older folks (25-29) to "share stories" about what they did wrong or what backfired.

Love these young people though, but yeah. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

I have a college aged daughter and we have had a lot of ups and downs helping her dress professionally for school events and internships. It’s really hard to find professional wear at stores where she wants to shop like Artezia. It seems like you could find things there, but everything is tight, cropped, sleeveless, see-through, etc. and generally made for Instagram. We ended up going to Ann Taylor which she thinks of as for old people, and isn’t exactly stylish career wear. The malls don’t have the stock they used to, and online shopping is hard. If she was looking without me, she probably would be wearing something inappropriate to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was unprepared for the aesthetic of this year's crop of new hires. They dress horribly - sweatpants, messy hair (looks like they just got out of bed), crocs or other plastic shoes, rumpled t-shirts. For some tasks this is OK, but a lot of the time we are meeting with clients and doing site visits, and we are in the design industry, meaning we generally consider our look part of our branding. Our brand is high end but creative, so there is a lot of leeway, but I just don't know how to tell the younger adults how to dress without offending anyone or being seen to police bodies or hairstyles. But I need them not just to adhere to a list of "don't wear this," but to actively look good. Like, hair combed and styled, preferably some makeup for women, and so on. Does anyone else have this issue and how did you handle it?

Right....and Im sure you would consider a man wearing makeup and nail polish to be suitably dressed and pleasingly aesthetically to your clients?

I dont wear makeup because its dumb, expensive, and lots of chemicals for no real purpose. Sunscreen chemicals get balanced with sun exposure and risk of cancer. There is no balance benefit to makeup besides societal expectations. Not to mention that most people have no idea how much makeup it takes to make a "no makeup" look.

I'm fine if they don't want to wear makeup, but I'm not fine with a messy, frizzy ponytail topping it off. I don't care what the specific look is, but I need them to look good. Our clients are dressed up, our brand is high end and all about aesthetics. I can't even bring them into the sites with me sometimes because they look so bad that I'm sure they would cost us a sale.

Provide a budget for this. For me to go beyond what you would probably view as “a messy, frizzy ponytail “ I’d need to get quarterly relaxers and cuts for $200+ per visit, and add significant health risks to my profile. Heat styling would be safer — but exponentially more expensive and time consuming because of their frequency. What are you offering here?
Also, “aesthetics” is a judgement call. Are you positive that your own judgements and the client’s are aligned?

Don’t do relaxers! https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-women-hair-relaxers-cancer-rcna117685 It may explain *some* of the differences in health outcomes.

Correlation vs causation.

True. Quite a lot of health research looks like this — with quite sophisticated statistical methods used to attempt to isolate particular variables and combinations of variables.

The quite expensive and highly unethical alternative would involve isolating a large group of women (increasing statistical power). Making sure that all of the factors in their lives were as similar as possible. Then giving one group relaxers, and, over the decades, noting their health issues, comparing them with the group not given relaxers. Repeating this multiple times would approach causation and take several decades.

Personally I’d rather braid my hair, go with twists, or risk having someone view my natural hair — even in a ponytail— as “unprofessional “.

Wear your hair how you want, but my controversial view is that the natural hair movement has gone to far in the direction of making relaxers seem unacceptable or even evil. There are women who want a different look or find natural hair time consuming, and the culture no longer accepts relaxers as an option. If a lot of us are just going to wear wigs might as well get a relaxer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a college aged daughter and we have had a lot of ups and downs helping her dress professionally for school events and internships. It’s really hard to find professional wear at stores where she wants to shop like Artezia. It seems like you could find things there, but everything is tight, cropped, sleeveless, see-through, etc. and generally made for Instagram. We ended up going to Ann Taylor which she thinks of as for old people, and isn’t exactly stylish career wear. The malls don’t have the stock they used to, and online shopping is hard. If she was looking without me, she probably would be wearing something inappropriate to work.

Nordstrom Rack sells inexpensive professional clothes, their house brands. Ann Taylor loft always has big sales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a college aged daughter and we have had a lot of ups and downs helping her dress professionally for school events and internships. It’s really hard to find professional wear at stores where she wants to shop like Artezia. It seems like you could find things there, but everything is tight, cropped, sleeveless, see-through, etc. and generally made for Instagram. We ended up going to Ann Taylor which she thinks of as for old people, and isn’t exactly stylish career wear. The malls don’t have the stock they used to, and online shopping is hard. If she was looking without me, she probably would be wearing something inappropriate to work.

Ann Taylor Outlet is better than regular Ann Taylor. Less stuffy. Loft (which used to be related) can have some good separates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a college aged daughter and we have had a lot of ups and downs helping her dress professionally for school events and internships. It’s really hard to find professional wear at stores where she wants to shop like Artezia. It seems like you could find things there, but everything is tight, cropped, sleeveless, see-through, etc. and generally made for Instagram. We ended up going to Ann Taylor which she thinks of as for old people, and isn’t exactly stylish career wear. The malls don’t have the stock they used to, and online shopping is hard. If she was looking without me, she probably would be wearing something inappropriate to work.

It’s Aritzia. And literally all my DC’s internship clothes are from there. They have really nice structured pants this season, appropriate length dresses, silky full sleeve button downs. It reminds me of the 90s.

[Anonymous]

My company used to do an Etiquette Workshop for the interns and early grads. It included photos of what to wear, what not to wear. We also covered in person client meeting behavior, email correspondence, etc. Some colleges teach this stuff some don’t but instead of getting twisted about it, look at it as an educational need.

[Anonymous]

The hair issue aside (which has been discussed ad nauseam), it sounds like a pretty simple list could eliminate a lot of these issues:

1) No yoga pants
2) No sweatpants
3) No jeans with holes or designs (e.g., paint splatters)
4) No crocs
5) No flip flops
6) Skirts must not be shorter than the tips of your fingers when standing
7) Clothing must be clean and unwrinkled