Who doesn’t love a great pair of jeans? With a Dress for Your Day initiative recently implemented at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska (BCBSNE), employees can rock their favorite casual duds around the office any day of the week.
“Or a pantsuit, if desired,” said Colin Hayworth, BCBSNE talent acquisition manager. “Dress for Your Day gives employees the freedom to consider their schedule, work area and personal style to dress in a way that best fits their needs.”
A few teams at BCBSNE, including the customer service department, tested the policy before the initiative went into place company-wide. Brandi Hobbs, BCBSNE customer service manager, said the transition went smoothly.
“It’s something employees had been asking for and it made sense for our area, so it’s a win-win,” Hobbs said. “We heard a lot of feedback that employees appreciate that their voices were heard.”
While some employees on Hobbs’ team are comfortable dressing casually, others choose to maintain a business casual dress code. Hobbs said giving employees the opportunity to dress the way that’s best for them is the best part of the initiative.
Marla Headley, BCBSNE account implementation specialist, agrees.
“I think it’s great,” Headley said. “It creates a more laidback work environment. As long as people don’t have meetings or things like that, I don’t see the harm in wearing something more comfortable.”
Overall, Hayworth said Dress for Your Day provides recruitment and talent acquisition advantages while creating consistency throughout the company.
“If there’s one easy thing to help our culture and make things a little easier for employees, why not do it?” Hayworth said. “Are employees going to stay here because they can wear jeans? Probably not, but it does make their decision a little easier.”
Questions about what is and isn’t appropriate to wear in a casual work environment came up during the planning process. Hayworth said employees generally know what’s right and wrong in the workplace, so the planning team left the dress code open to interpretation.
“We’re not anticipating it being a major problem,” Hayworth said. “It’s something that was very simple to do and showed a big level of confidence by BCBSNE leaders in our employees that we could do this and aren’t worried about it.”
Hobbs said Dress for Your Day is “empowering” for employees.
“I asked for my team’s thoughts and the response was, ‘it’s awesome,’” Hobbs said.
For more stories like this one, visit the our take tab.