MBA1640 Q&A Wednesday: Should my remote team have a dress code?

Before all the algorithm fed blah and the endless sea of dupes, shopping used to feel more fun. But here's a confession fashionistas. You can find that fun feeling again on ebay. It's not mindless scrolling, it's a fashion pursuit. And when you score that Rari Adidas Collab or the Dior Saddlebag, you've been manifesting, it's a rush. Ebay has millions of pre loved finds from hundreds of brands backed by ebay. Authenticity guarantee eBay things people love Ready.

To save on new tech it's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Perks include Dell rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster. And with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA show where you and your business get better on the daily with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, the complete business training and community online. Today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode on our Q and A Wednesday episodes. I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over at Omar MBA Net. Today's question is from Charles and Charles asks should my remote team have a dress code? Solid question Charles. A lot of businesses now are going remote, see the benefits and really have adopted to this new way of working. But a lot of unorthodox unusual questions like this come up because this is something new. Just because people are working at home, are all the values and traditions and the protocols of business out the window? People meet online via video meetings. Is it okay for people to show up in their pajamas? Should you set a clear rule in your handbook, say for example in your team handbook, a descriptive dress code? How do you enforce these rules? We get into all that in today's episode, so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Charles asks, should his remote team have a dress code for those who are new to remote work? This is a valid question because you don't know what to expect here. You don't know if people are going to show up in the same professional manner as they did when you showed up to the office. People are leaving the house by default. They're Going to dress for work. So my answer to Charles is pretty simple. It's whatever you want it to be, okay? It depends on the culture of your business. I've been running a remote team for over a decade right now, and I've never had a dress code. Now, that doesn't mean I never had a dress code problem. But in business, it's important for you to allow people to have creative freedom, to have autonomy, to make their own decisions, to treat them like adults. And one of the things that allow you to do that, in my opinion, is to have minimal rules. I know that sounds strange, but for the vast majority of the people that are gonna work on your team, they know what is expected because you've set a culture of professionalism. You showed up dressing a certain way, and to be quite honest, it's not really about dress in our company. It's really just being professional, you know? And anytime I had to address an issue, it was not so much dress as general appearance. Just, like, tidying up yourself, hair, things like that, before you get on a video call. The point is, this is something I learned over the years and something that has been reinforced in things I've read, like the book Creativity Inc. Ran by the founder of Pixar. And his whole thing is like, have minimal rules. Most people are gonna follow your culture. You're gonna do the right thing. The vast majority of people are gonna be doing what you expect, but sometimes you'll have the exception. You'll have people that are just not doing what you expect or not actually showing up in the way you want them to show up. And you should never enforce rules for the exception. That's my personal opinion. Having a big rule like, hey, you have to show up in this kind of attire. This is what's acceptable. I' in environments like that, back when I was working in education, and it's very restrictive, and it's actually a little bit demeaning for people you're working with professionals, adults, educated people. When I was working in education, everybody had a bachelor's, a master's degree. They have really a lot of experience in education. And to treat them like, hey, that shirt's acceptable. This shirt's not acceptable. Without allowing them to make their own judgment, it's a little bit demeaning. So you want to make sure you're working with professionals here. You've hired great people. For the vast majority of people, they're gonna be okay. But sometimes I would probably say one in every 50. In my experience, 50 people I've worked With you'll have to address an issue and you'll just have to have a quick one on one and just say, hey, by the way, thanks so much for doing xyz. But just a little bit of a tip, just a little bit of insight, a little bit of feedback. You may want to show up with some examples. You can show them like, you can wear this or this, or show up to a meeting looking like this. And you can just explain. We don't have this written in our handbook. It's more of a cultural thing. And I just wanted to give you some feedback. And this is a whole lot easier than just trying to enforce a rule with everybody on your team, okay? The exception sometimes is just easier to handle than having a rule that kind of pushes people down. Now, one easy way to make sure people show up professionally at meetings, even when they work remotely, is to lead by example. And if you are a man, then you know you're gonna lead by example in terms of how men should dress, because obviously attire for men and women are different. And if you have women in leadership, you should definitely tell them, hey, you're part of leadership. And they should know how to dress because they're in leadership. And that's a good example for women that are going to be dressed for work. And again, I want to make this clear. We've never had to talk about this in our company. People show up to work professionally. They know they have a professional environment. And we give some tips and some advice in our handbook in terms of setting up their workplace or the workspace at home. But generally everybody is totally okay and is abiding by what we consider our standard. Now, I want to mention that you need to evaluate your standard. Maybe your standard is unnecessarily high. Do they need to wear a college shirt? Right. Why not a T shirt? And are they going to produce less work? The other thing is that what kind of culture you want to build? You know, for us, you know, people show up with T shirts to work all the time because we're a creative team, right? We create a lot of things. We create software, we create content. And creatives in general don't dress up. Okay? And so we want to embody the creative culture, but it's different if you are dealing with high profile corporate clients that are really expecting you to show up in a suit. You know your business, you know your culture, but leading by example is the easiest. But evaluate what kind of culture do you want to have and then take it from there.

Okay? I have to tell You. I was just looking on ebay, where I go for all kinds of things I love.

And there it was, that hologram gram trading card.

One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.

Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. Ebay had it. And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of finds, each with a story. Ebay, things people love.

USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day. Like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.

Great question from Charles about dress code with remote teams. One of the things I want to mention is that in our company culture, I'm just sharing what we do. We have a always camera on policy. So whenever we have a meeting, everybody on the team knows that their camera's on, right? We don't ever have meetings where cameras are off. Only sometimes there's an exception, some as a connection issue, something like that. But for the vast majority of the time, everybody has their camera on, and it just allows us to connect in that way. This is the culture of our business. And that kind of helps you with this culture of dress code, because when people know their camera's gonna be on in every meeting, they're going to wake up in the morning and they're gonna, you know, get ready, right? They're gonna get ready for work. They're gonna, you know, make sure that they're presentable. And that's a good thing because it gets people in that mindset. Mind over matter is true, but matter over mind sometimes help as you want to feel like you're going to work and you want to feel like you're getting ready sometimes just changing the way you dress every day, no matter what, I get up, of course, I shower, I clean up, I do my hair, I get dressed for work, and I show up to my home office. Then when work is over, I change my clothes into my home clothes because I want to change my state of mind. And one way to do that is just change your physical appearance. They say dress for success, right? So dress in the way you feel is acceptable for your company culture. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 BA Show. If you love it here, hit subscribe right now. Don't miss a beat by hitting subscribe. You get the next episode automatically. It's absolutely free. So go ahead and do that right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If T shirts are okay in your company culture, in your dress code, one fun and nice way to introduce a new team member to your team is is to send them a couple T shirts of your company, right? A couple of pieces of company swag. And it makes them feel nice because they have something to wear during meetings. It makes them feel part of the team. And they'll start noticing other team members with your company T shirt in those meetings and be like, hey, I want one too. So it's a nice little surprise you can give them when they get hired, when they're in their first weeks at the job, and it allows them to feel proud of where they work. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.