Recognising the Value of Staff Uniforms to Workplace Wellbeing

This detail may not be the first that springs to mind when considering how to engage, motivate and inspire your workforce, but it is an established fact that, across all industries, the providing of a smart corporate uniform for your loyal employees plays a pivotal role in their overall well being.

Mental health, the importance of which has only recently been fully identified, is generally very positively impacted, while there is a fostering of a sense of affiliation, self confidence and pride throughout the team.

The provision of staff uniforms verifiably maximises employee wellbeing and job satisfaction, driving workforce productivity.

Uniforms also play a pivotal role in the promotion of feelings of security and belonging, and eliminate personal anxiety over “what to wear for work”. Worrying about the suitability of their attire or eliciting a negative reaction from team mates is thus eliminated, factors that all play a key part in the overall employee experience.

Custom workwear is undoubtedly more than the sum of its parts. Many companies spend a large amount of resource and time on employee wellbeing programs, and that’s great, but have they actually identified the beneficial impact of staff uniforms to workplace wellbeing, not to mention their corporate culture and professional image?

The wearing of quality apparel (which also promotes your brand) can literally be the difference between a workforce suffering from low employee morale and staff that would answer “extremely” when quizzed on their job role satisfaction.

Enclothed Cognition

The science to prove all this has been deeply delved into, and a study made in 2012 by Northwestern University established that:

“Wearing certain clothes has a tangible effect on the wearer’s psychology and performance. This concept is known as “enclothed cognition,” which refers to the symbolic meaning of fashion and its influence on our mental state. For instance, wearing a lab coat or a blazer to work can boost productivity and performance based on their associations with intelligence. People often embody the abstract meaning of the clothing they are wearing. “Enclothed cognition” can be good or bad, depending on if it’s associated with a negative or positive construct. This might explain why staying in sweatpants or pajamas all day during the pandemic affected some people’s productivity due to its association with laziness or leisure.”

In a nutshell, the psychological effect of a dapper dress code at work significantly influences human behaviour, performance and perception. (Source: The Psychology of Uniforms: How Attire Influences Performance and Perception-LinkedIn)

Creating a sense of identity and belonging, the uniform subconsciously enhances the team morale, and encourages cohesion and communication.

Improved focus, alignment, collaboration and productivity is achieved and a willingness to “go the extra mile” is often engendered.

Comfort and Functionality

The requirement for the clothing to be both comfortable and functional is of paramount importance, and for many companies prioritizing comfort and ease of wear trump style and fashion considerations, although the beneficial impact of an appealing design should always assume significance .

Disparate industries have their own unique requirements. Airline uniforms, as an example are quite different in style and manufacture to those worn in the construction industry.

Employee Wellbeing

Airline uniforms are the perfect example of staff uniforms in practice. Imagine a flight where the crew dressed as they thought fit! The pilot in jeans and t-shirt would hardly provide the safe and professional image the airline owes its very existence to! And customer satisfaction would plumb new depths if the cabin crew were undistinguishable from the passengers. There is something unique about the appealing design of natty airline uniforms and the sense of pride and the sense of unity they promote can be palpably felt.

An exciting and rewarding but often challenging role, it would be unthinkable that an airline would not prioritize employee wellbeing through a well designed uniform for its highly trained crews.

Company Culture

The driving force behind every business, your company culture is effectively the DNA of your organisation, and while many factors inevitably contribute to this, bespoke uniform design is a key component.

The wearing the uniform or “team colours” cultivates both a sense of professionalism and a sense of pride and, when worn outside of the immediate workplace, it is boosting the brilliance of your brand and values and disseminating them throughout society!

Uniforms can also help create a level playing field by removing cultural biases. When everyone in the organization wears the same attire, it eliminates visual cues that may lead to unconscious biases. This promotes inclusivity and diversity within the workplace, creating a more supportive and harmonious environment and ensuring your organisations cultural sensitivity cannot be questioned.

Customer Experience

And then there are the resulting benefits when your team are face to face with clients of magnified customer perception and improved customer experience.

Potential customers will immediately be struck by your corporate image, and your approach to uniforms could play a pivotal role in the securing of a key contact.

Employee Health Management

According to Racontuer the average British person will spend the equivalent of 3,507 days at work throughout their lifetime. That’s 501 weeks (or 125 months).

Or, looking at it another way, 333,004,800 seconds.

No matter how you slice it, that is a significant amount of time spent in the workplace.

So it really is a no-brainer!

If wearing a well designed uniform is one of the key features that provides employee wellbeing, notice should very much be taken!

If your through attire, your business image fosters a sense of unity, improves employee engagement (and by extension employee retention), increases employee productivity, removes cultural biases, contributes to customer interaction, and in the overall, contributes to employee satisfaction on a daily basis, there is only one course of action to take.

Make employee health management a top priority through the sourcing of staff uniforms today!

Clad Safety is here to help you ensure you maintain a resilient workforce which enjoys complete job satisfaction.

With a wealth of over 30 years of experience, working with leading brands to cement their corporate culture, we are the acknowledged experts when it comes to custom uniform design and advising on the attire to ensure workplace well being.

The products and services we provide underpin the successful efforts of our clients to keep employee engagement at the highest level and ensure workplace well-being is thriving.

Our gifted in-house design team will be very happy to discuss your requirements in detail so that you get the full benefit of our bespoke design service.

When it comes to making sure your employee productivity is maximised through your approach to employee wellbeing, Clad Safety have all the resources on hand to deliver the perfect proposal!

Get in touch today on 0800 161 3661 or email [email protected]