When Style Is Vile

Jeans and t-shirts may work at Microsoft, but they won't fly at the law firm.

By PT Staff, published on March 01, 1995 - last reviewed on August 09, 2006

Professionals in T-shirts and shorts wander from their desks to the hall to bump a volleyball over an imaginary net while talking work.

That's fine for Microsoft. But the casual dress code that has been unbuttoning corporate America isn't the best policy for every concern.

Sure, it breeds innovation in the workplace, says Penn State organizational psychologist David Morand. That's because going informal involves far more profound philosophical and psychological changes.

Corporations that have bought into informality have looser hierarchies; people are more apt to call each other by their first names. Meetings are more conducive to free thought and risk taking. People's speech, posture, and manners change; they feel free to interrupt one another—circumstances more akin to brainstorming, observes Morand.

People use expressions like "hey" and "ya know" and drop the occasional syllable, formally known as phonological slurring. "It's indicative of camaraderie and group speech," Morand explains. Informal language allows people to treat each other as peers, even intimates, possibly speeding the establishment of trust between two strangers.

That may breed excellence in cutting-edge computer companies. But excellence is differently garbed in banks, insurance firms, and law offices—industries that thrive less on creativity than on routine, detail, and logic.

There formality works better, even if employees wish they could be a little more laid back. Formal dress codes generate sober attitudes and a cool social distance between workers. That same social distance is what makes it easier for your local bank officer to refuse a friendly customer like you a loan.