By Karen Porter

Some jobs (or rather the company) require employees to wear uniforms. For instance, you might see employees of a carpet cleaning business wearing a shirt with a logo and the same color pants and shoes. You may see restaurant workers wearing identical shirts and visor caps. Why do they dress this way? It’s part of their job requirements. Plus it may be necessary for reasons like safety, hygiene or so that customers recognize the employees. Or employers may be sending a message, even an advertisement, about their company services and cultures.

While most employers of uniformed employees likely try to accommodate employee physical comfort and sometimes fashionable style too, if truth be told, that’s not the highest “what to wear” criteria employers are thinking about. They are thinking about things like company cultures and images, best serving clients and meeting safety and sanitation standards, not necessarily in that order.

In contrast to uniformed employees, many, if not most, office professionals are not required to wear “official” uniforms. But if you’re one of these lucky employees with the option to dress as you please, don’t take it too literally. Your employer may not ask you to wear a company uniform but you are expected to dress to represent your business, your department and your boss’s office environment. So you’re supposed to be wearing the “unofficial” uniform of the administrative professional and your company. What’s that? Or what isn’t that?

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