Trend Toward ‘Business Casual’ Shows
No Sign of Letting Up in OC
Harrison Frank is the only individual at the law offices of Berger Kahn who wears a suit.
Harrison Frank also is a mannequin,and a symbol of what Berger Kahn doesn’t want to be: stuffy, stodgy, not-with-it and just downright uncomfortable.
In Orange County, where the entrepreneurial spirit runs high, more and more companies are going casual,not just “business casual,” and not just on Fridays, but everyday-comfy-casual as in jeans, sneakers and Aloha shirts.
“Harrison is there as a reminder not to take ourselves too seriously,” said Craig Simon, managing partner of Berger, Kahn, Shafton, Moss, Figler, Simon & Gladstone’s five law offices.
The perception of yesterday’s business world was “you had to show up in a suit to be serious,” Simon said. Today, “people who show up in a suit are the odd man out; old, stodgy and not-with-it.”
“High-tech has killed the suit,” he said.
Well, maybe. More and more companies,especially technology companies and businesses serving technology companies,have banished the suit and tie, as well as the skirts and nylons, to the darkest corner of their closets, but there are still some traditional-dress bastions, ranging from the venerable Earle M. Jorgensen Co. to tech wunderkind Broadcom Corp.
And of course Disneyland long has been notorious for its dress code, which until last month included a ban on male facial hair. (Employees now are allowed moustaches that do not extend below the corners of the mouth,but they must grow them before being hired or while on vacation, not on company time.)
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison’s Irvine Spectrum law office may have a certain level of excitement, but it’s no Disneyland. The firm has defined its workplace dress code as business casual. For them, that means no athletic shoes and no shorts. Dockers, jeans and polo shirts are OK.
“Just about everything goes,” says Bruce Allen, marketing manager for the firm.
Wide-Open Spaces
The firm’s offices reflect an entrepreneurial culture, with wide-open spaces instead of stuffy cubicles. And the attorneys dress to match their clients, many of whom are startup technology companies, he said.
“We dress to them,” Allen said. “We don’t want to intimidate them.”
But when doing business with Broadcom, another Brobeck client, attorneys suit up. Broadcom is the $34 billion-market-cap exception to the tech industry’s dress-down rule.
“They’re sharp dressers,” Allen said of Broadcom’s two founders, Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas.
And that sharp-dressed look is passed down through the ranks, said a Broadcom employee: All five days, it’s coat and tie.
“It just shows a level of respect for the visitor,” she said.
It’s also a practice Broadcom has maintained from the start.
At Berger Kahn, attorneys dress to meet their clients’ expectations, too, but inform clients-to-be up front that it is a casual company.
Simon instituted a business-casual policy,jeans and tennis shoes are OK but not at the same time,at all the offices a few years back.
“It started innocently enough,just not having ties,” Simon said. Then came Casual Fridays, the policy of many companies today.
Then Simon pushed it further. Why not all week? he asked. From there, the casual policy evolved and it’s even become a recruiting tool.
It also increases productivity, Simon said. For instance, a research trip to the library is harder to pull off in a suit. In comfy clothes, he said, he can pull three books off the shelf, sit on the floor, “spread it out and make it happen.”
Simon considers his firm’s dress policy an extension of its culture.
“We’ve always been a bit unusual,” he said. For instance, he noted, while law offices staked out downtown Los Angeles, Berger Kahn moved into Brentwood. Before IBM put out the PC, Berger Kahn was into the Mac.
On top of originality, the company has its roots in Hollywood, the capital of the laid-back culture. Lead partner Paul Berger’s father, William, was the attorney for the Screen Actors Guild.
Return to Tradition
But once in a while, the new style doesn’t stick.
One of Ernst & Young’s clients has switched back to more formal office wear, believing that casual dress has given them casual results, said Jim Bowling, office managing partner of E & Y.;
However, he adds, “that was very unique.”
At E & Y;, “we really struggled” with the new business-casual dress code. “Accountants and professional services firms are usually not leaders in this,” he said.
So it came up with a policy last January of no jeans, collared shirts but no ties.
“We really haven’t experienced many let-downs,” he said. But it has been difficult for executives to figure out what business casual means. They don’t have a lot of casual clothes, so they wear what they have, golf shirts, Bowling said.
As casual becomes the predominant dress policy nationwide, Bowling thinks the quality of business-casual dress will improve and execs will invest in new wardrobes, burying both the suit and tie and the golf shirts.
Meanwhile, Roth Capital Partners, an investment bank, is trying out a business-casual policy for 90 days.
Arnold Kraus, Roth’s COO and executive vice president, said its investment bankers began to feel like oddballs when they showed up at meetings in dark suits, white shirts and cuff links and the clients would ask if their bankers arrived in a limousine.
Midway through the trial period, the policy is working, he said.
Kraus was initially concerned his managers would turn into “fashion police” but employees have been adhering to the policy and their peers have taken on the policing role. At the end of the trial period, Kraus suspects, the firm likely will retain the business-casual policy.
Employers’ Dilemma
Jon Miller, employment law attorney with Berger Kahn, reminds his clients that “it’s not so much what you wear but how everybody behaves.”
He gets lots of calls from clients trying to determine what is and isn’t acceptable workplace wear.
“We have clients who have never seen an earring in their office,on a man,” Miller said. They ask: “Can we send them home?”
While an employer can set the terms of employment, including the dress code, Miller noted, banning earrings could result in sexual-discrimination and sexual-harassment suits.
“You have to be tolerant,” he said. “That’s what we tell our clients.”
Dot-coms and high-tech employees are rejecting old “dress to impress” philosophies and for the most part, embrace tolerance, dressing any way they want.
At GoShip.com, “nobody cares,” said Cathy Taylor, director of marketing. If there is a business meeting, it’s business casual but suits and ties are out.
Why?
“The three guys at the top don’t like to dress up.”
“My guys think that getting dressed up is a pain, expensive and not conducive to long hours working in front of the screen,” said Rick Tysdal, senior vice president of marketing for Oinke.com. “Most of them wear the same stuff they wore in school.”
Kathryn Van Ness, director of UC Irvine’s Career Center, can vouch for that. She consults with many students, male and female, who interview on campus with appearances such as a flaming red patch of hair down the middle of their head and six earrings in assorted body parts.
“Dye your hair black,” she tells them. And “no piercings that show.”
Also, no blaring colors. And for women interviewing for management and consulting positions, wear a skirt, she said.
But the standard blue or black suit of the old economy is not necessary, she said.
Representatives of many of the Fortune 500 companies that interview on campus will wear polo shirts to meet the student candidates, she said, “but they want to see the kids in total business attire.”
Reasons for Switch
Van Ness suggests the casual work wear trend has its roots in downsizing. This generation saw their parents get laid off, she said. They saw no sense of loyalty on the corporation’s part. So this generation is rebelling against old corporate culture, which includes dress.
She also thinks companies are becoming more dress-tolerant because of labor shortages.
That was Maurice Nelson’s problem. He’s president, COO and CEO of Brea-based Earle M. Jorgensen Co.
“We were running into recruitment issues,” he said. The hard part was getting IT people to conform to the company’s white-shirt-and-tie dress policy.
“It’s almost offensive to them,” he said. “I folded about a year ago.”
But only for the metal services firm’s first floor,the IT department.
“I don’t want to be a fuddy-duddy,” he said. But “this goes all the way back to Mr. Jorgensen.”
Earle Jorgensen, the founder who died last year, had a shoeshine booth in every plant and was an immaculate dresser. His policy was white shirts, no facial hair and shoes shined; skirts and nylons for women. Today, it’s the same except for the facial hair and women can wear dress pants, Nelson said.
The company was founded on principles and is rooted in tradition, he explains.
“Personally, I would rather be in casual,” he said. Just like customer service and hustle, he said, professional dress “is timeless.”
He acknowledges that his employees would rather he unbutton the dress code.
“The company would love it if I would change this,” he said. And Jorgensen has an increasing number of clients who are casual, and some have urged his firm to follow suit (pardon the expression).
“White is easier,” Nelson counters. “Think of the mental energy you save not having to choose a color.”
It doesn’t fly with all customers, however.
“In those cases,” Nelson shrugs, ” ‘when in Rome …’ ”
And when in court, attorneys from Berger Kahn and any other firm must wear a suit.
So, one time when Berger Kahn attorney Sherman Spitz had an emergency court appearance and couldn’t make it home and back,a 40-minute round trip,he borrowed Harrison’s suit, leaving the mannequin buck naked.
“He won the motion,” Simon said.
But Harrison hasn’t been stripped since.
New court rules require 24-hour advance notices for all hearings, and attorneys can better plan their attire. n
