This CEO Set up a Company-Wide Dress Code Thats Only 2 Words And Its Working Wonders

This CEO Set up a Company-Wide Dress Code Thats Only 2 Words And Its Working Wonders While dress codes dont always go over so well in the workplace, General Motors new dress code is working wonders.The GM chief executive Mary Barra tells Quartz that the policy, in full, reads just two words. The dress code? Dress appropriately.Studies show that dressing well can affect how were perceived and how we feel in the workplace and that can affect how much money we earn, too. A Yale University human resurces in 2009, months after GM had filed for bankruptcy, but instead of focusing on restructuring the company, she tackled seemingly small policies first, like the dress code.At the Wharton People Analytics Conference, held in Philadelphia on March 23, she said A lot gets set aside when yure going through a restructuring process, so it was an opportunity to really define our culture. So, brainstorming with the HR department, I said lets change the dress code. Lets make it dress appropriately . But the HR department ironically posed my first hurdle. They started arguing with me, saying, it can be dress appropriately on the surface, but in the employee manual it needs to be a lot more detailed. They put in specifics, like, Dont wear T-shirts that say inappropriate things, or statements that could be misinterpreted.. What does inappropriate, in the context of a T-shirt, even mean? So I finally had to say, No, its two words, thats what I want. What followed was really a window into the company for me.She replaced the companys original 10-page treatise.What I realized is that you really need to make sure your managers are empowered because if they cannot handle dress appropriately, what other decisions can they handle? And I realized that often, if you have a lot of overly prescriptive policies and procedures, people will live down to them, she said. But if you let people own policies themselvesespecially at the first level of people supervisionit helps develop them. It was an eye-opening experience, but I now know that these small little things changed our culture powerfully. They werent the only factor, but they contributed significantly.By simply stating to dress appropriately, Barra chooses to trust her employees judgments and she says that the experience has proven to be liberating.Dont miss out on articles like these. --AnnaMarie Houlis is a feminist, a freelance journalist and an adventure aficionado with an affinity for impulsive solo travel. She spends her days writing about womens empowerment from around the world. You can follow her work on her blog, HerReport.org, and follow her journeys on Instagram her_report, Twitterherreport and Facebook.