Dress Code in the Telesales and Telemarketing Business

The issue about dress code policy in call centers always comes up. Some call centers impose a strict corporate to business casual to casual to “anything goes”. Management almost always encounters resistance from employees on the dress code they want to implement. This friction has led some call centers to loosen up a little bit by giving up corporate in favor of casual dressing, giving employees some leeway on how they want to dress. And the result? There was a significant decline in the employees’ quality of work.

On the other side of the extremes are call centers that do not have any dress code at all. The result? They get nothing but headaches. Their employees would show up wearing clothes that are generally considered inappropriate to the point of being indecent by showing too much skin. This goes to show that centers need to have a dressing policy put in place because it has an impact on how you do business.

So the question now becomes: “What is the right dress code?” The answer to this depends on the nature of the business. An ideal dressing policy that would be acceptable in most call centers is business casual. Some people may argue that dressing up is not really necessary because the customers they interact with over the phone do not see them at all. But what call center employees do not see is that dressing up in business casual gives them a professional image and this professionalism is reflected in the way they conduct themselves over the phone. Also, if clients visit your call center quite often, wearing business casual attire certainly helps give a positive impression. Call center employees have a diverse cultural background, and when it comes to dress code policy making it is better to get the employees themselves involved. This will not only make things easier for the management. It also ensures that the code that will be established is acceptable to all and will be observed by all faithfully. Fines or penalties should be imposed on those who don’t observe the proper way to dress.

Let employees have a breather once a week with a “wash day”. You can put a twist to the business casual policy by giving employees the option at certain times to pay little amount of money in exchange for the freedom to wear what they like (but still conforming to the “code” of dressing appropriately) and donate the proceeds to charity. The fact that that there are some who don’t take the opportunity to dress down does not mean that they don’t to want to support a good cause. It means they are just comfortable with what they wear.