State Farm Relaxing Dress Code to Allow Jeans

Mr. Positivity's blog entry to this Pantagraph story:

Hey gang, I'm happy to see the change, regardless of which employer it is. It's an inch toward freedom of choice. If variety is the spice of life, then this is a step in the right direction!

BLOOMINGTON -- Memo to State Farm Insurance Cos. employees: Put denim, not Dockers, on this year’s Christmas list.

Bloomington-Normal’s largest employer will relax its current business casual dress code starting Jan. 2 to allow some workers to wear blue jeans and other more comfortable clothing depending on their daily work duties, said spokesman Phil Supple.

“It’s all about the business,” Supple said. “It’s a change in the philosophy of how we apply the dress code.”

Department leaders for State Farm’s 68,000 employees in the United States and Canada will decide what dress guidelines their employees will follow to still put the company’s best foot forward with the public, Supple said. The insurance company’s 17,000 agents are independent contractors and already decide what they and their staff members wear in their offices, he said.

A more casual blue jeans dress environment has been typical for years in certain industries, such as technology or creative fields like advertising, said Tim Longfellow, chair of the marketing department at Illinois State University, which instituted a business casual dress code at professors’ discretion this fall for marketing students.

But State Farm is the first large corporate business in the Twin Cities that Longfellow knows of to announce such a change. He doesn’t know if other companies will follow the insurer’s example, but he thinks they’ll watch and see the upsides and downsides.

“It really depends on the contact that person has with customers and clients,” Longfellow said. “That will sometimes vary.”

The same is true with the evolution of the dress code at State Farm.

Individual departments within State Farm will make their dress code decisions based on the needs of the workers and the office customs and cultures, Supple said.

For example, managers might allow employees who spend their time in an office or cubicle to wear jeans, whereas employees who have face-to-face contact with other business professionals or customers may still need to wear Dockers or a suit and tie, Supple said. Those department guidelines could even change daily depending on what work employees have on the calendar on a certain day, he said.

The further relaxing of the dress code comes 10 years after State Farm adopted a business casual philosophy to stay competitive in a changing corporate environment, Supple said.

“Times continue to change, and we want to expand that ability to dress more comfortable when appropriate to attract and retain top quality for our workforce,” said Supple, noting the insurance giant has seen other companies move in the same direction.

As baby boomers retire in the next five to 10 years, employers will have a huge need to attract the best new workers, Longfellow said. Businesses compete for the top job candidates through wages, flexible hours and other unique benefits like employee day-care centers, he said.

“Companies are really looking at all these different things to enhance the lifestyle for their employees,” Longfellow said.