Many
organisations and companies ask their staff to wear a uniform. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of this? What kind of jobs should have a work
uniform?
Organization specific dress codes have
become ubiquitous and almost all businesses, regardless of size, comply with
the trend. This has led to an intriguing but a fierce debate about the benefits
and downsides of this practice besides. One does wonder, however, about what
work should follow a dress code.
Undeniably, standardized clothing patterns facilitate
blurring differences and promoting harmony among personnel, hailing for diverse
socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. This makes colleagues abandon
discrimination and embrace homogeneity
and instead pursue common objectives. Also,
corporate clothing is considered to be a highly acceptable method of rendering
a distinction between levels of authority of those working at various levels of
organizational hierarchy, and role sets of
those handling diverse jobs such as blue collar and white collar jobs.
Nevertheless, not many are convinced with
the currently in vogue trend of sporting organization specified gear; they
consider is disparaging. Their view is founded on beliefs that this acts as a
mechanism that impedes, rather obliterating, creativity, and promotes mental slavery and extreme reliance
on following procedures, making people uneasy. Such an organization, as this
lobby assumes, seldom sees productivity augmenting at every level, and is
caught in procedural delays.
Despite the squabble about merits and
demerits, the use of company defined attire code is a must in organizations
that have specific role-sets such as armed forces, law enforcement agencies
which help afford reassurance to citizens, and those which rely on public
relations and outreach since the outfits of their personnel exude
approachability and friendly attitudes.
In hindsight, wearing or foregoing a
predefined ensemble has been eternally argued for ages though practice
continues to thrive unabated, even in the modern emancipated world, in a new
manifestation though. I feel it exudes unity, homogeneity and sense of
obligation; thus, outshining alleged pitfalls.