10 Dec Choose Uniforms Your Employees Will Love

Each business decides to purchase employee uniforms through a different route. Is it a style choice? Are the uniforms for branding purposes? Do employees at competing or similar businesses all wear uniforms? Those are all questions to consider for your move forward. Whether you are starting a new business or rebranding one, you want to choose uniforms that fit your company mission. But, importantly, you don’t want your employees to hate wearing them! They will carry themselves with confidence and feel like part of a community if you make the right choices.

Different Reasons for Workplace Uniforms

When the time comes to choose employee uniforms, a small amount of forethought will go a long way. The best means of selecting the right uniform comes with to use uniforms in the first place. Several key reasons prompt employers to use uniforms:

• Dress code
• Branding
• Uniformity
• Team building

The purpose behind your decision will determine what kind of uniform you select.

Achieving Workplace Dress Code via Uniforms

Uniforms solve the tricky problem of dress codes at work. Even when employers stipulate what attire is appropriate, employees can cross the boundaries. Did the employee not have enough clothing to comply? Is he or she resisting the dress code? Was compliance too expensive for that employee? The reasons for showing up at work outside the dress code are infinite. Supplying uniforms for employees resolves the minor (or major) problem variations in the dress code. Further, when you choose uniforms, you also dictate the quality of dress, whether you provide casual T-shirts with logos, quality polos with embroidering, or dress jackets with emblems.

Choose Uniforms for Branding

As we say all the time, branding is crucial to setting your business apart. Uniforms provide a simple means to impress your brand on customers and potential customers at a one on one, face to face level. Uniforms can further communicate a color association with your brand, reinforce a logo, and even set the tone for your company. For example, employees at Chipotle wear matching T-shirts, each with a peppy or snarky comment about their food products, setting a trendy, light-hearted mood. The correct choice of uniform can express the tone or message you choose quite well.

Uniforms Mean Uniformity (in a Good Way)

The fact that uniform and uniformity are different versions of the same word is not a coincidence. A host of inequities disappear with work uniforms. Inconsistencies in color, quality of dress, wearing of inappropriate or off-message logos, economic disparity in clothing purchases, and numerous other variances no longer appear at the workplace. When your employees dress in uniforms, you achieve a consistent appearance across your staff, delivering the expression of quality you desire.

Get Your Employees’ Buy-In

Keep in mind the people who have to wear the uniforms every day. They will accept them much more enthusiastically if they get a say. While you may wind up with a broad spectrum of answers, involving your staff in such a team building exercise often pays off with employee satisfaction. If you’re transitioning from an old dress code, ask employees what the like and dislike about the old uniforms. Perhaps you can give them a range of colors to choose from. You could even hold a vote to select among the top options. Keep in mind, too, what are reasonable expectations for them to provide on their own. For example, if you provide the shirts but expect them to buy their own pants or shoes, make the requirements easy and affordable to obtain.

Work uniforms can bolster a team identity for your employees. Much like in sports, the person becomes a representative of the team by merely dressing for work. With just a little bit of planning, you can wind up with uniforms your employees will love.

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