What we wear is what we are...

Today morning I was discussing with one of my colleagues over the kind of clothes one is allowed to wear in our offices. In most of the offices we are asked to wear formals but thanks to the IT industry, at least one day in the week we are allowed to wear smart casuals. So when I was discussing this, I asked my friend what people wear to their offices in the US. He told me that the office dressing culture in the US is not so stringent and over there employees are generally seen in casuals unless there is a serious engagement, It’s only in the financial and banking sectors where people are always seen in the formals. I felt good about it since wearing a casual to the office is much simpler and agreeable and started complaining him about the stringent rules we Indians unnecessarily impose onto ourselves. He told me then that in the US most of the companies have a separate sales office and their sales professionals are always dressed in the formals since they keep engaging with their clients through out the day. He added that in India most of the companies do not have such system and that is why when a client walks in to their office they want to show them a pious environment. Like he said it is the Indian companies that are in search of business today and they want to prove their seriousness and commitment to their prospective customers, so wearing a casual to the work place might not be a right indicator.

My friend’s statement came as an eye opener to me not because it was a shocking discovery but looking at the thought process that goes behind your dressing in the office. Even in the IT industry when the customer is visiting the offices the employees are asked to be dressed in formals. When you go to any ICICI bank, you find all their employees wearing a similar shirt and sporting a similar tie. They are interacting with their customers daily and that too with a large number, so it becomes an essential obligation to differentiate themselves in the crowd. Even in a well established restaurant you see the bearers & butlers wearing a uniform to make their customer’s life easy. On the contrary we do not see a customer regularly & directly interacting with the employees of an IT industry thus making life casual for their employees.

While thinking about this, I was reminded of an interesting observation. The East had been a conservative and value driven society while the west believed in freedom and advances we made. That is why when you go to many of the Eastern (Japanese and Korean) companies you find the employees wearing a uniform. These companies do not have cabins either and they encourage all their employees in sharing a similar workplace. This strengthens their philosophy of mutual respect, equality & eliminating socio-economic differences. It is possible to compare this kind of thinking to the communist way. In the west people believed in freedom & expression, a characteristic of Capitalistic trait and that, thought not solely, explains to an extent the philosophy behind their dressing. The Cabin culture of course has taken its birth in the west which symbolizes the personal space demanded by an employee over there.

At the end of the day it is all an invisible culture and tradition that goes behind our form and our actions, a terrific influence that we commonly ignore.

Thursday, May 29, 2008 Ravi Shanker