The Establishment of a Dress Code at Blue Shield Company - Assignment Example

Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Class Name: Date Assignment is due: A report on the effects of female mode of dressing at Blue Shield Company Abstract This is a report on the findings on the effects of mode of dressing adopted by ladies and women at Blue shield Company. The external effects on the dressing adopted by ladies and women have also been studied in this report. The report analyses the reactions of male employees towards their female colleagues at workplace. The mode of dressing adopted by ladies and women in the organization is analyzed in relation to the corporate culture, goals and values of Blue Shield Company. The research aims at establishing the internal and external effects of the mode of dressing adopted by ladies and women and the repercussions it has towards the overall performance of Blue Shield Company. The study also investigates the perception of men towards the mode of dressing adapted by ladies and women in the workplace. The name of the company is not real so as to protect the identity and image towards the public. The study discovered that the internal performance of the company was affected through the way ladies and women dressed while the external performance was boosted. The employees of the company together with customers of the company were involved in the study. The conclusions drawn from the study were that a special mode of dressing in the company should be established by the management. When ladies and women were allowed to dress in a way of their choice, they exaggerated and their fellow male employees affected by the dressing. In order to maintain the company in the market, establishing a peculiar mode of dressing for ladies and women would solve the problem. Purpose of the study This research was done at Blue Shield Company to establish the internal and external effects of the mode of dressing adopted by ladies and women employees. The perception of male employees during work towards ladies and women mode of dressing and how the internal performance of the organization is affected is one part of this research. The second aim of the study is to know how the profits of the company are affected by the mode of dressing adopted by ladies and women employees. The reaction towards the establishment of a special mode of dressing by the employees is also another aim of this study. Background Blue Shield Company deals with buying and selling of clothe to the public. The company was established in the year 2002 by a famous business person in the country. The employee turnover has increased in the last two years and, the most affected employees are men. The ratio of male to female employees is 51 % for the female and 41 % for the male. There are a total of 500 employees in Blue Shield Company. The director of the company has been there since the establishment. The director is a woman and was heard at a conference talking about ladies dressing code in an organization. The company allows all employees to dress according to their wish. The employees deal directly with customers at the various branches of the company in the country. Going by the company’s annual reports, the profits have been increasing every year despite the high turnover rate of employees. In order for an organization to survive in the market, there should be set goals and objectives by the management (Hellriegel and  Slocum 152). There are certain goals and objectives of the company that employees strive to meet. One of the goals is to be the leading seller and distributor of all types of clothing in the country. The company is one of the top sellers of clothing in the country and wishes to outclass its fellow competitors. The other objective of the Blue Shield Company is to double its profits every year. The other objective of the company is to establish branches in every part of the country. Currently, Blue Shield Company has its branches concentrated on the major towns in the country. The company aims to expand through establishing as many branches as possible in every part of the country. According to the ratings on the best companies in the country, Blue Shield Company was ranked among the top five companies. The company has a slogan meant to motivate its employees. The slogan is an acronym BLUE, which is interpreted here. B stands for Be alert, L stands for Look forward, U stands for unite and E stands for Endeavour. Indeed, for a company to thrive well in the market, it should have an outstanding slogan or motto. Blue Shield Company has no official dress code for the employees. Employees are allowed to dress in a way they feel comfortable at work. The management through the director does not deal with issues to do with dressing in the work place. Women are allowed to dress in long trousers, Jeans, or even short skirts since the establishment of the company. Concerns were raised by male employees who felt uncomfortable to work with ladies and women at the work place. Literature review Women in Blue shield Company are allowed to interact with their male colleagues during work. The way women dress during work influences the internal culture of the organization. Dressing communicates about the way a person thinks and acts (Dubrin 433). Some men are unable to concentrate in their work when they see women in the workplace dressed in a suggestive manner. White collar work place clothing has undergone significant changes through the years. When working in a corporate office, appropriate clothes are required to be neat. Men are left with temptations at the place of work. The dressing of women employees at the workplace is interpreted by male employees as tempting where by men are forced to engage in flirting with lades and women. The situation has led to many male employees to quit their jobs as, it was observed. Organizational culture consists of the abstract values, beliefs and perceptions that lie behind the behaviors of people in the organization (Daniels et al 2-19), it is necessary to gain insights into employees’ perceptions to reveal the linkages and meaningful relationships that employees have created, shared and enacted through the complex process of interaction. Smircich indicated that shared meanings occur when there common grounds and meaningful activities developed through symbolic acts, forms or processes such as dressing, rituals, slogans and languages (55-65), which give an organization its own ethos, or distinctive character (520). When there is undress code, a negative perception is developed among the employees of whom others do not want to be associated. Regarding the outside performance of Blue shield company, customers are attracted by ladies especially men who end up buying more clothes. This is a way of attracting customers adopted by these ladies and women. The improved performance of the company can be attributed to the fact that sales increase when ladies dress in the so called ‘sexy’ manner. A controversy is created between maintaining the high profits of the company or maintaining integrity and respectable workforce. The internal and external images of a company contribute to the success of the organization. According to Oxfam and Sweetman (38) conservative dress-code gives credibility to women in the society and the world hence giving more credibility to the organization. As an organization expands and, new people join, they come with their own expectations and it is difficult to maintain the same attitude. The new members will then regard the women without a dress code as ‘over-empowered women’ (39). Going by the established goals and objectives of Blue Shield Company, it becomes difficult to either adopt or discard the establishment of a dress code among women working in the company. Main Research Question Are there any effects of the mode of dressing adopted by women at Blue Shield Company in terms of internal organizational structure and External relations with customers? Subsidiary Research Questions - Are male employees comfortable with the female mode of dressing at the place of work? And if there are, are they positive or negative effects? - What is the relationship between the sales of blue shield Company and the mode of dressing adopted by women in the workplace? - To what extent are the modes of dressing by ladies exaggerated? - What of the ladies themselves, do they have a problem with their dressing and, fellow ladies dressing and are they ready to change if the company decides so? - How many ladies at the Blue Shield Company are considered to be dressed inappropriately by male employees? Methodology While conducting this research, there was the use of interviews and observation. Three groups of individuals were interviewed and, the analysis was done. It was also pivotal to work as an observer whereby the researcher was supposed to visit blue shield Company and see the trends of the customers. It is vital for researchers to be concerned about the questions being asked (Lofland 71-91). There were a total of 75 individuals who were interviewed in the research. 20 of these interviewees were from the senior management of the company who had worked for about five years, 50 were employees of Blue Shield Company who were picked randomly while the remaining 5 were potential customers of the company. Through observation process, the relationship between customers and, employees were observed and the relationships among employees were also observed. The research was conducted at one of the principal branches of the company that recorded largest profit according to the company’s management. The reason why these groups of individuals were selected is that they play a large role in the running of the company. There was the need to have equal distribution of participants in the interviews. Short and structured questions were posed to the interviewees. Some of the questions in the interviews were structured while others were not structured. The responses were recorded in a table and tabulated. Document analysis of the official documents of the company such as balanced sheets was carried out. A review of the existing relationships in the Blue Shield Company was carried out. Findings From the first part of the structured question, these were the results. The question was, ’’ are you negatively affected by the mode of dressing of female employees in the Blue Shield company? Group interviewed Number of those who said ‘yes’ Number of those who said ‘no’ Number of those who were not affected Customers (5) 1 3 1 Male employees (40) 35 3 2 Female employees (10) 2 7 1 Management (20) 10 10 0 Results 48 23 4 From these results, it is evident that the employees were most affected especially the men by the mode of dressing of the female employees in the Blue Shield Company. Other results showed that the management was concerned with the internal culture of the organization since it plays a role in the growth of the company (Bode 1-13). From observation, it was evident that male customers were attracted to female employees. When females were selling clothes, many men were attracted to buy. Sales increased when many women were on the counter compared to when men were on the counter. The internal relationship between male and female in the Blue shield company was poor considering the mode of dressing. Many male employees were not comfortable working with women who were dressed in a suggestive manner. They opted to quit and work in other companies. An informal interview was done with an ex-employee of blue Shield Company and, he said that he had to quit since the female employees were exceedingly tempting. From other interview with the senior management, they admitted that the sales of the company had been increasing especially when they involved more women to do the selling. They also admitted that the organizational culture was affected by the fact that male employees interpreted the dressing of the ladies and women wrongly. The management was torn in between the two concerns. Key issues During the research, three key issues were noted. The first issue was raised by women who claimed that they are living in a democratic country and hence they are supposed to dress according to how they feel. In an interview, with one of the female employees she said: ‘‘We are living in a democratic country. Stop male chauvinism and men should mind their own businesses. We do not dress to impress male employees but rather to attract customers. If any male feels that he is not satisfied in his work, he should leave. We are able to convince male customers to buy our products thereby increasing the profits of the companies. We are also able to earn a sales commission higher than them and, this is advantageous to us. They should stop critics against us”. From the conversation, it was easy to note that ladies and women employees were comfortable with how they dressed in the company. The other issue was with the management. It was not easy for the management to control the mode of dressing in the organization since there was an advantage attached to it. One of the lady women interviewed said the following. ‘‘Considering the fact that beautiful ladies attract more male customer it is difficult to control how they dress. When we compare how male employees are able to attract female customers and how female employees are able to attract male customers, there is a sizeable difference. Women tend top get more commissions compared to their male employees. That is one of the chief reasons why there is considerable turnover of male employees. They tend to be demoralized by the female employees who earn commissions great than them. To promote our sales, we cannot control the employees but to maintain the internal relations among employees, we should control them. Some of the male employees have raised the issue to the management but, we are torn in decision making. We are forced to choose between earning high profits and maintaining an outstanding organizational culture (senior manager at sales department)’’ The other issue raised by male customers was about the beauty of female employees. They admitted that they were attracted by ladies who worked at Blue Shield Company. One of the male customer was interviewed and said the following ‘‘Actually, I visit the Blue Shield shops once in a while not only to buy their stuff but also to see the beautiful ladies. Sometimes, I am forced to do impulse buying just to view the beautiful ladies. They are extremely attractive and, you would not pass the shops without buying something. They know how to convince customers with their beauty. Many men around here shop for their clothing at Blue Shield stalls. When I buy anything related to clothing, at home they will ask me whether I bought it from Blue Shield stalls. I am addicted to that place and, I do not regret. The ladies are too beautiful to be ignored. It is normal for a man to get attracted to beautiful ladies, even if he is married. I know they are taking advantage of us, but, we do not have an alternative. The more you pass by their shops, the more you will get attracted to them and the ladies will eventually convince you to buy their inventories. Since the shops were established nine years ago, I have shopped at blue shield stalls uncountable times (potential customer of Blue Shield Company)’’ Developing an effective brand not only attracts the right employees but also attracts customers (Lawler 75). Female employees in the Blue Shield Company are known in the towns where they operate to be among the beautiful ladies in town. They realized that male customers are easy to attract compared to female customers. It is not a wonder, therefore, to see women around the town wishing to work at Blue Shield Company. Other women who do not work with the company are jealous of the female employees of the company. Discussions and conclusions From the research, it is evident that two things are seen to contradict each other. One of them is about the company profitability while the second is internal relations among the male and female employees. The management of Blue Shield Company wishes to maintain its profitability according to their objectives. The management seeks to establish a conducive environment among the employees to reduce the rate of turnover (Robert and Jackson 36- 37). Considering moral and ethics of the society, it is not fair for the ladies to dress in a way meant to attract men to buy their products. Male employees at Blue shield Company admitted that they were not comfortable working with the ladies at the workplace. Those who are morally upright feel that they are in the wrong place. A step needs to be taken by the management of the company. They should first establish a strong relation among the employees. This can be done through making every male and female employee comfortable in the work place. Both sides of the argument should be considered when coming up with a solution. One of the recommendations of this report is the establishment of a dress code at Blue Shield Company. A smart official dressing should be established by the management for both male and female employees. The employees should sit together in a forum to discuss the new dress code. The dress code especially for the female employees should be extremely smart. The latest design in the market should be selected so as to continue attracting male customers. Education of employees should be carried out through seminars and workshops among others to enhance a strong cohesion between them. They should enlighten about the changing trends on dressing so as to feel comfortable at the workplace. The Blue Shield Company needs to maintain its integrity in the market and to the public. The motives obtained from the company’s aims and objectives should be followed. Other causes of male turnover should be discussed in the company. They should solve all internal wrangles in the Blue Shield Company to ensure it survives well in the market. Works Cited Bode, S. The Importance of Culture. München: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Print. Caroline, S. Gender in development organizations. London: Oxfam. 1997. Print. Daniels, TD, Spiker, BK and Papa MJ. “Perspectives On Organizational Communication,” in Don H. and Slocum W. J., Organizational behavior. Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Dubrin, AJ. Essentials of Management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. Lawler III, EE. Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print. Lindlof, TR and Taylor BC. Qualitative Communication Research Methods (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2002. Print. Mathis, RL and  Jackson JH. Human Resource Management: Essential Perspectives. Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Smircich, L. “Organizations As Shared Meanings,” in Pondy, L. R., et al., Organizational Symbolism, JAI Press, Connecticut 1983 , pp. 55-65, 520. Print. Taylor, SJ and Bogdan R. Qualitative Research Methods: The Search For meaning (2nd Ed.). New York: John Wiley and sons, 1984. Print. Read More