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My mom was an airline stewardess in the glory days of PanAm. People would dress up to go on the plane. That is a distant memory if you have flown in the past two decades. The rise of hybrid work has been well-documented both here and elsewhere, but often less publicized is the massive effect that the proliferation of off-site work arrangements has had on work attire expectations, taking an already occurring evolutionary trend and massively accelerating it.
Where a worker is conducting their work can make a substantial difference in how they dress, of course, and it is no surprise that nearly 4 out of 5 employees (79%) who work hybrid schedules dress differently depending on their work location - whether that be at home, on-site, or in a third place.
Perhaps more interesting, however, is how on-site and in-office dress codes are becoming increasingly more casual at the same time. For example, the most recent polling data from Gallup indicates that only about 3% of US workers wear a suit to work - down 4% from the 7% of respondents who did so in 2019.
Another survey indicates that the proportion of offices with formal dress codes in the US has fallen from 1.2% to just 0.2% over the last 4 years.
What was once a widely observed professional standard across an array of industries has now become an outlier, and the trend lines for business casual wear in the workplace, while not nearly as drastic, may ultimately lead to a similar fate.
This recent piece from BizWomen takes a broad look at some of those trends that are emerging with regard to workplace attire:
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