Implementing Dress Codes in the Workplace

A Story by Lizbeth

Tattoos, piercings, suggestive clothing, and other employee wardrobe choices can present sticky issues for employers. While companies generally have wide latitude to create and enforce their own dress codes within the workplace, they may face unexpected landmines if they don’t plan ahead and consider the implications of their dress codes policies, or lack thereof.

Extremely strict dress codes can inadvertently weed out potentially good employees. Employers can also find themselves in legal trouble if their dress codes could provoke gender, religious, or other discrimination claims.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has even become involved when an employer stumbled with a dress code. In September, the high court agreed to review a case where retailer Abercrombie & Fitch refused to hire a Muslim teenager because her head scarf, or “hijab,” clashed with the corporate dress code. This is not the first such case the company has faced because of its dress code, and it has changed its policy regarding head scarves. Nonetheless, the litigation continues to play itself out.

Photo: long formal dresses

In that case, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., an Oklahoma job applicant, Samantha Elauf, wore a head scarf to an interview as a sales associate but never explicitly said she wore it for religious reasons. Head coverings violated the company’s “look” policy against headgear, and she was not hired.

“The EEOC is committed to eliminating religious discrimination in the workplace,” said Webster Smith, acting director of the EEOC’s St. Louis District Office, which is responsible for the agency’s litigation in Oklahoma. “As religious diversity increases in the workplace, companies need to be more vigilant in respecting and balancing employees’ needs to practice their religion, including engaging in religious expression.”

When establishing dress codes, employers must carefully consider the goals they wish to achieve, how to achieve those goals through a formal policy, and how to enforce those standards in a way that minimizes legal risk.