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Wednesday July 24, 2024

Why Uniforms Make People Happy!

Happy staff are more productive and achieve better results.

A positive company culture helps improve retention rates and attract new staff.

People are much more likely to do business with and/or purchase from an organisation they can trust.

Have you ever considered how uniforms can positively contribute to each of the above? In this blog, we explore the many positive benefits uniforms can bring and how, quite simply, uniforms make people happy!

  

Fostering Cohesion, Culture & Belonging

A sense of belonging is such an important advantage in any organisation and the simple act of wearing identical uniforms can play such a vital role in fostering and promoting this. Think of a sports team – all donning the same shirts and knowing the connection and pride associated with that, and the common goal of winning together that it signifies. Adopting uniforms in a workplace can have a similar impact on its staff. This very visual element can create a level playing field and help establish a more collaborative approach, improve communication and help achieve a more co-operative workforce.

By introducing uniforms into your organisation, or replacing dated uniforms with a more modern alternative, you can cultivate a community, not just a collection of workers.

 

An Important Branding Exercise  

Linked with the above is the importance of branding a uniform provides. Whether worn internally in their day-to-day roles, travelling to other sites, or representing the company at events, a uniform is a very visible representation of where you belong as an employee and ambassador of your organisation and can – and should – be worn with pride.

Brand colours, logos and taglines can all be incorporated into corporate clothing, enhancing the visibility of your brand and offering ‘free’ advertising potential through your employees. As such, quality clothing is essential to make the best impression on (potential) customers and helps the wearer benefit through getting to wear high class clothing.

 

Promoting Equality in the Workplace

In adopting uniforms in the workplace, a key consideration is the levelling effect this achieves. For many people in difficult socio-economic situations, getting a job can prove an expense outside of their grasp because of the inability to afford suitable clothing. By providing uniforms for staff, employers can remove barriers to entry and ensure that capable candidates do not miss out on opportunities because of their financial status.

This sense of equity continues during employment itself, with uniforms eliminating the pressure sometimes associated with dressing for work and the comparisons staff can perceive are made between how they dress and how their colleagues do. Employees can feel assured that they are being judged only on their performance in their role, and not how their attire compares with others. This helps create an inclusive and supportive culture.

 

Instilling Trust

Trust is an important element in most organisations but in some cases, it is more pertinent than others. Seeing someone in a bank uniform or a reputable hotel attire gives us a feeling of reassurance that we’re dealing with someone we can trust. However, sense of trust is even more important in the medical profession, emergency services and police and military for example, where a uniform can literally signify a life-saving opportunity.

 

Keeping People Safe & Secure

Similarly, trust in the garments themselves is a very important asset in uniform provision. At Tailored Image, we obsess about every detail of the technical function of the garments we supply to ensure they are fit for purpose and allow the wearer to perform their tasks without fear. This is particularly true of emergency services uniforms, and we’ve done extensive wearer feedback sessions with police and ambulance forces in particular, to ensure they can trust their uniforms to protect them. (Read more on this here).

However, it’s not just emergency services that require that feeling of safety at work. Tailored Image supplies a wide range of high visibility garments and protective footwear to a range of organisations including transport companies, engineering firms and large-scale manufacturing facilities to ensure the safety of their staff.

After all, staff need to feel safe and secure in order to be happy, so don’t underestimate the importance of these factors towards the contentment of your employees.

 

User Comfort – this is one we are really passionate about!

An employee will spend the majority of their day in a uniform, so achieving wearer comfort is of utmost importance to us as uniform providers. A well-designed uniform should provide a level of comfort an individual won’t achieve when selecting items from their regular wardrobe. From moisture wicking fabrics to help prevent excessive sweating for warmer environments to luxurious fleece lining and high-quality waterproof fabrics to help protect against more inclement weather; from stretch fabrics to well positioned pockets to avoid discomfort when sitting, we have solutions to achieve maximum wearer experience no matter how rigorous the conditions are in which your employees work.

 

One less decision!

Decision making is one of the biggest drains on our mental energy and the use of uniforms can help prevent one of the earliest decisions to be made in your day – what on earth will I wear today?! This may seem trivial to some people. but the elimination of this decision allows employees to begin their day in a less stressful way and improve their capacity to carry out their daily tasks to the best of their ability.

 

Improving Confidence and Performance – a virtuous circle!

The wearing of a uniform, with all the aforementioned benefits of cohesion, equality and comfort as examples, can create a more confident individual. A well-fitting, visually attractive and appropriately designed uniform can help create or improve positive self-esteem for the wearer which in turn leads to a more confident approach to their role. When an employee feels a sense of purpose and that they are working towards a common goal with their colleagues, this can improve performance and lead to a more productive attitude to their work. Herein can be found a wonderful virtuous circle where improved confidence leads to better productivity which improves performance and hence leads to a gain in confidence, and so on.

The very fact of donning a uniform can shift the focus away from personal time and into work mode. Once the uniform is worn, an employee knows they are now switched into company time which gives a level of focus and can improve discipline.

 

Higher Customer Satisfaction

We mentioned ‘uniforms make people happy’ – and we don’t just mean those wearing the uniforms! A uniform can have a positive impact on customer perception and improve their interactions with your company. First impressions are important (read more about this in the hospitality sector here) and a uniform can help ensure these first impressions are professional, represent your company culture and values and leave your customers and potential customers with a favourable feeling towards your staff and your brand.

From a practical perspective also, uniforms help to identify your staff so that customers can easily find and approach them. Whether a customer needs help in a supermarket aisle or wants help to order drinks in a bar or restaurant, uniformed staff help make this process easier and leads to increased customer satisfaction.

 

Positive Recruitment and Retention Rates (because that keeps the boss happy!)

(Read more on this topic here)

Uniforms as a branding exercise portray an important message to the outside world and that includes potential staff. Seeing staff wearing attractive uniforms with pride can be a big draw for potential work candidates and can help in the (often challenging) recruitment process.

The sense of identity and community that uniforms help achieve can also ensure lower staff turnover and therefore a better retention rate. Happier staff are more inclined to stay longer in their jobs and prevent them from considering job opportunities elsewhere. And isn’t this what every business owner dreams of?

 

A Happy Outcome

So, there you have it: a plethora of reasons why uniforms make people happy – not just the people who wear them, but those who aspire to wear them, those who encounter them as customers and the business owners who procure them. If all of these reasons have helped you realise the need for uniforms in your organisation, we would love to hear from you:

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