Not many people are wearing formal clothes to work, as a lot of people are still working from home. With not many businesses enforcing a dress code at home, the company Coupon Follow decided to see just how casual people were getting.
"For this survey we actually surveyed over 1,000 people that had previously been sitting in an office almost every day working and now, of course, are no longer working at the office. They're all working from home. And it was a broad range of ages from 30s to 70s from all over the country and from a wide range of industries," said Michael Parrish DuDell, Coupon Follow's Chief Strategy Officer.
DuDell says the idea was to get a snapshot of how people are dressing these days, how much money they're spending on clothes and what they like to wear. Coupon Follow connects customers with shopping deals around the country. Their survey found one possibly surprising result.
"We did find that 29 percent of workers work naked when working from home. Did that surprise me? That’s probably one of the words I would associate with my response to that. No, it didn’t surprise me. I think what surprised me is that people were so honest about the fact that they were working naked while working from home. I imagine that people weren’t working the full day naked. My guess is that there were some experiences where perhaps they had to and they answered the question with that in mind," said DuDell.
The survey also showed the most popular work-from-home outfit was either loungewear or athletic wear. For the most part, people are really enjoying wearing a more casual wardrobe day to day. So much so, that 28 percent of respondents said they're willing to take a pay cut in order to keep the casual dress code going once they're back in the office.
"And that pay cut ranges about 15 percent in the dollar amount, was just north of $1,000 dollars. So, between $1,000-1,100 dollars people were willing to sacrifice in order to work in a place that didn’t require them to wear that button-up suit and tie," said DuDell.
Lisa Frydenlund, an HR Knowledge Advisor with the Society for Human Resources Management, has some advice for people wanting to talk to their boss about a more casual dress code.
"I always feel like if you have an idea and you want to bring it forward, first figure out who best to bring it forward to or what department to do so. Then, come with an idea, something you know will be heard in a sense that does it fit? Walking in with something totally crazy, you’re almost going in with the knowledge that it's not going to work. So, going with a plan," said Frydenlund.
She says while some employers have still enforced a dress code policy for their employees working from home, many have relaxed those rules.
"I think it makes sense, especially in the world that we’re living in today considering that there’s a lot of challenges. So, being more comfortable in our current surroundings and most of us are at home, feels like one less thing to worry about," said Frydenlund.
Frydenlund says many employers will have to re-establish their pre-COVID dress code rules once they welcome people back to the office.
"In general, I think people are asking themselves a really important question, which is, if I am doing something at my office - whether it's putting on a button-down shirt or whether it's doing work that can be done from home, they're thinking about that question. Is there a way to revise this to make it more relevant to the life and world that we live in now?" said DuDell.
As for whether the casual theme will continue once people are back in the office, DuDell says it could depend on the type of business, but it will certainly be a topic of conversation going forward.
