How has lockdown had an impact on the way we dress for a meeting and does it affect our results?
Nothing sticks better than a story - if its yours, even better!
No Trousers Allowed
If I think back to when I started my career, it was at that point in time where trousers were not allowed at work, especially in an office environment. It was frowned upon females were expected to wear dresses, skirts, blouses - and high heels.
I remember going to our printer in the east end of London before digital printing started. It was not a clean environment. It meant using the train, underground, and then a 15-minute walk. In those days, well shall we say the Waterloo station you see today is very different to decades ago when there was a lot of black, and things were not as clean - and I wore trousers.
I was working for a major paper company. It was my job to collate the prices from our suppliers, work out our profit margins and then get the artwork ready for the price list, onto our massive computer system, see it through to the printing of the brochures and posted out to tens of thousands of clients.
My explanation that it was a messy, all-male environment didn't fly
During the week I popped into work and was summoned into the manager's office - they had received a phone call, why was I working in trousers?
My explanation that it was a messy, all-male environment didn't fly. I was representing the company our brand mattered, and although I might think I was a small piece, I was part of a much larger picture.
It took me back to the time at school when pulled into the headmistresses office, a group of us were in strict terms told how to behave if we ventured into town during the lunchtime. We had reached the age where we were to be trusted and reminded we represented the brand of the school.
If I go back even further, we were the children who ran home to tell mum what we had got up to before the village could report to her. Thankfully this was before every house had a phone, and when they arrived, we had to run faster. I remember well the saying, "do not bring our good name into question."
My career led from Paper and Print into the Toy and outdoor play industry and now Brand & Marketing, all known for casual dress, although still I rarely attend meetings in anything other than dresses & heels.
Of course, there are hundreds of ways we represent our business, even more ways to increase our visibility, shine a spotlight, and stand out to attract potential clients. How many understand that every touch is a representation of our business, our brand?
I started to watch what others were doing to see if it made a difference
Nowadays, our dress code is very much more relaxed, and in lockdown, have we become too casual? I went through a few weeks where dressing up for a zoom meeting was a chore. I soon realised the change in my mood and how I felt so much better reverting to dressing the way I was used to (even if I did have my slippers on). I started to watch what others were doing to see if it made a difference to the outcome of a meeting or presentation. Were the results different?
What does the way we dress and present ourselves say about us these days? Is it now more about how we feel with so many people becoming more accustomed to working from home and attending virtual meetings and presenting on a far wider global stage? But does it have an impact?
Yes, there it appears it does, people understand that we were or are still working from home and that children and pets would appear, however turning up too casual is still frowned upon.
I thought this article: The Science behind WFH dressing for zoom, might interest you, as it also dives into our confidence and wellbeing.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-behind-wfh-dressing-for-zoom-11600626704
"The rise of video calls has added complexity to an area of research known as enclothed cognition, or what signals clothes send to the brain. In some ways, the clothes that you wear might have an even bigger impact because we can often see ourselves and what we are wearing, and that sort of draws that symbolic value to it even closer to our consciousness.”
I present weekly inside several groups on Facebook and at Business Networking meetings, some of the videos I have added to my YouTube Channel. If you want to listen and hear more about my ramblings going back through the decades and how we used to work, take a look:
There's also a whole load of marketing and visibility tips in them.
Sign up to receive news from Gill at 38 Partnership
