Dress Code: Whatever

Prosperity is working with quite a few American digital companies who are either already established in the Irish Market, or are coming in as new entrants.  Some of these new entrants are web companies while others are product based companies who are on the verge of signing on the dotted line and giving Ireland Inc a whirl.

These companies are often very liberal in their thoughts about dress code and are very relaxed about casual attire, body piercings and tattoos. I guess they are a couple of steps ahead of us in realising that casual dress can hugely improve the morale of employees in a company – Furthermore, as many people who work in the digital space are highly creative, they often have a natural resistance to the conventional, and a clause in a contract that insists on a business dress code is often a major turn off.

These American companies recognise this. In Europe most companies have the policy that you can dress as you like so long as you do it in “your own time”. Well surely even when someone is at work they should still be in their own time – a happy and creative employee is one that sees a blurring of the lines between work and leisure; research in the States has shown that a company with a casual attire policy is viewed as being more caring about employees – also, that the management are flexible, and that they are prepared to do things in a different way.

Successful International digital companies entering the Irish market benefit our indigenous digital companies by a cultural osmosis. Irish digital companies can learn from their relaxed attitude towards individual expression. And if a candidate with industrial piercings feels more comfortable with your competitor, then you are further diminishing your access to an already small talent pool.

Gary Mullan