Swiss Bank Has 43-Page Dress Code

Tasha26 writes "The HR of Swiss bank UBS AG came up with an innovative 43-page document (French) to establish fashion 'dos' and 'don'ts' in their retail branches. Among the rules are such things as: 'neither sex should allow their underwear to appear,' perhaps Dilbert was a bit ahead of them on that. The document also mentions smells and 'avoid garlic and onion-based dishes.'"

huh

[Anrego]

So uh a business whose employees deal with customers on a daily basis in an industry where projecting an image of professionalism is very important has developed a guide to aid their employees? This just sounds like common sense to me.

43 pages sounds a bit insane, until you actually look at it. Large print, lots of diagrams, lots of whitespace/formatting not 43 walls of text. It actually looks pretty clean and readable.

Financial institutions are still one of the last places where we expect people to put some effort into their appearance. Even geeks like myself who cringe when they have to put on a tie tend to expect the people dealing with our savings to look the part. If the guy I’m greeted by has a nose ring, I’m out of there. Yay for double standards I guess.

For comparison

[blair1q]

The U.S. Army's guide to dressing up right is 362 pages [army.mil].

And they have total control of the manufacture and issue of the clothes. They're not suffering all the randomness that the fashion and retail industries insert into civilian clothing choices.

Re:huh

[holt]

There's instructions on how to tie a necktie. I don't know how to tie a necktie. If I got a job at one of those banks I'd have to go dig up some instructions on-line... Or I could just use the nice document that HR provides during orientation. That'd actually be handy.

I don't know how one would get a job at a place like that without having worn a suit and tie to the interview. If they're telling people how to tie a necktie after the fact, isn't it too late?