Month: September 2021

Returning to the office

As things start to return to where they were prior to the pandemic, many businesses are thinking about dress codes.

Many office-based businesses have relaxed their dress code during the Covid crisis, some opting for a totally relaxed and casual dress code, especially for employees working from home.

Why are dress codes necessary?

Dress codes are utilised by employers for a number of reasons, be they to convey a professional image, a brand, they are required for health and safety reasons, or a uniform. For those employers who already have a dress code policy in place, the return to work is an opportunity to review it and ensure it still meets the needs of the business now. This is especially important now that so many employees continue to work from home, have opted for hybrid working, or meet customers and clients online.

5 Top Tips for Dress Codes

Here are some of the key things you should consider when creating a new or updating an existing dress code policy:

1. Sex Discrimination

Concern is often expressed about whether having a policy which sets out different requirements for men and women is discriminatory. Past claims have challenged policies that have advised that women must wear skirts or men must wear a collar and tie for example. The good news is that to date the courts have held that dress codes differentiating between men and women are not automatically discriminatory.

Despite this, when deciding on your policy be mindful that conventions can change and although advising that women are required to wear a skirt may have been accepted 30 years ago, a safer option now would be to offer a choice of trousers or skirt, providing the trousers were still appropriately formal.

2. Religion/belief discrimination

A dress code that requires employees to act in a way contrary to their religious beliefs runs the risk of being indirectly discriminatory. For example, some religions direct wearing head coverings and a “no hat” policy may violate those practices.

3. Disability discrimination

Disabled employees may not be able to comply with a dress code, however, on the whole, this does not need to affect the way the dress code is drafted. Instead, employers should be sensitive in the manner in which the dress code is enforced.

4. Safety

Another benefit of having a dress code policy is to improve the safety of the working environment. Dependent on the environment, requiring employees to wear closed-toe shoes, banning dangling jewellery or scarves, or specifying that long hair needs to be tied up can result in fewer injuries in the workplace.

Dress codes are separate from policies on the use of protective clothing, which would normally appear separately or as part of health and safety policy.

5. Clarity 

It needs to be drafted in a clear and reasonable way. It is important to ensure that the language used in your policy is not too broad and open-ended, as this could result in a policy that is hard to follow and to enforce. Phrases like “professional attire” and “smart casual” are frequently used, but this is unclear to what it actually means. Using plain English and phrases such as ‘no jeans’ or ‘open-toed sandals’.

You should also consider what is reasonable and necessary for your working environment.  For example, long hair may need to be tied up if working in a kitchen but not front of house. Drafting a policy that is unreasonably strict is also harder to enforce and may result in disciplinary complications, not to mention being damaging to staff morale.

 

All dress code policies need to be carefully drafted with thought and consideration to ensure discrimination is avoided, but also to ensure there is a reasonable expectation of how people should dress in the workplace, based squarely on the business’s needs.

Policies need to have clarity and be communicated in the right way. A successful dress code policy should bring staff together under a single identity and employees need to know and adhere to the dress code policy, unless there are specific exceptions which might be based on religion or disability for example.

If you need assistance in drafting or updating your dress code policy then please get in touch with Lawson West’s employment team: 

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As we are still working through the Covid-19 pandemic, many employers are starting to welcome back staff to their workplace and embracing those who wish to work from home. 

• According to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) 9% of the UK workforce has been put under pressure by employers to return to offices.
• A Gallup Poll showed that 37% of employees would quit and take a new job that allowed them to work remotely part of the time. That’s over a third of workers and we are starting to see many employees resign in pursuit of hybrid working contracts, especially staff at larger sized employers.
• The Office for National Statistics has found that 85% of adults that are currently home working have said they wanted to continue to use a “hybrid” model of working both at home and from the office going forward. This is also supported by the number of online job adverts referring to home or hybrid working. 

The need of employees has changed
and work priorities have changed.

It is clear that employers now need to consider how they will accommodate the new way of ‘hybrid’ working, not if they will.

_____________________

Vaishali Thakerar, Director & Employment Solicitor
Lawson West Solicitors, Leicester 

The change to ‘hybrid’ working influences two areas of employment law, policies and employment contracts:

1. Implement new policies

When looking at the hybrid way of working, employers will need to review and update any existing policies to include or implement a specific hybrid working policy. The policy will be different for each business as it depends on the specific context and it will need to be added to your employment handbook alongside other policies.

You will also need to review policies, such as expenses (moving between workplace and home, fuel, insurance, paper, print cartridges), IT usage (laptops, monitors), homeworking (furniture provided, health and safety and data protection).

2. Update employment contracts

Hybrid working may bring about contractual changes for employees if it is to be implemented on a formal basis.

Informal – If it is an informal arrangement, changes to contracts may not be needed, but it’s important for staff to understand the differences between both and ensure they’re in agreement from the offset.

The pandemic (and technology) has led to a major shift change in how people perceive their working environment after decades of office and on-site working being the norm. Therefore, getting all of the policies and procedures in place straight away is vital, to ensure a smooth and successful transition into what will be a new era of working.

New policies need to be communicated. Likewise, if you have an informal policy, the parameters of this also need to be communicated so that there is no misunderstanding of what is expected of people and how hybrid working operates.

If you are an employer and need guidance on implementing a ‘hybrid’ working policy, or if you are an employee seeking a hybrid working contract from a reluctant employer, then please contact our experienced employment law team at Lawson West Solicitors. We’re here to help.

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