Six industries compared: who actually decides the dress code

Six industries compared, and in each one the person who actually decides the dress code sits somewhere different. At Goldman Sachs the firm's own memo sets the bar. At a McDonald's franchise the franchisee and the food code set it. At a Turner Construction site a hazard assessment sets it.

The six that follow are named, with what sets the rule, who supplies what it requires, and how much of the outfit stays yours.

What to take away

Contract labs: Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics

The rule is set by what is handled. Coverage is the usual requirement: a coat over ordinary clothing, closed footwear, and restraint of anything that hangs. Eye and face protection is separate and follows its own assessment, described in the eye and face protection requirements.

What is supplied is the coat and the protective equipment, and the law puts the cost on the employer. OSHA's PPE rule requires employers such as Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics to pay for gear the job requires, so a lab coat that typically retails for $25 to $60 should not come out of a technician's pay.

What is yours is everything worn underneath, which is nearly the whole outfit. The mistake here is treating the coat as the code. It is a layer over a wardrobe that still has to work for the rest of the day.

Quick-service restaurants: McDonald's and Chipotle

The rule is set by hygiene rather than by hazard. Hair restraint, restrictions on hanging jewelry, clean outer clothing and closed non-slip footwear are the usual requirements. They come from the operation's own food safety rules, which follow the framework in the FDA Food Code.

At McDonald's, the franchisee supplies the shirt, apron and hat. Chipotle supplies the shirt, cap and apron. What is yours, in practice, is footwear, and non-slip shoes typically run $40 to $90 a pair. They are the item most worth spending on because of the hours spent standing.

Hospitals: Cleveland Clinic and Kaiser Permanente

The rule is set by infection control and by movement. Coverage, restraint and footwear again, with an emphasis on what can be cleaned and what will survive frequent laundering.

Cleveland Clinic rolled out employer-issued, color-coded scrubs in 2010, and systems including Kaiser Permanente issue and launder scrubs for operating room and procedural staff. Elsewhere in a hospital, the scrubs are often a personal purchase.

Hours on hard floors make the sole the specification rather than an afterthought. The relationship between sole and floor surface is the subject of the OSHA material on slips, trips and falls, and the choices available within it are covered in the guide to work shoes.

Construction: Turner and Bechtel sites

The rule is set by an assessment of the hazards present, and it is the most specified of the six. Protective footwear, head protection, high-visibility clothing and eye protection are common, and each is selected against a particular hazard rather than as a general precaution.

Hard hats on the sites of major contractors, Turner and Bechtel among them, meet ANSI Z89.1, and a visitor is normally handed one at the gate.

Visitors are the group most often unprepared. Ask before a site visit what is required and whether it will be provided. Boots are the item to raise: OSHA lets an employer leave non-specialty safety-toe footwear to the worker, and a decent pair runs $80 to $200.

Investment banks and consultancies: Goldman Sachs and Deloitte

The rule is set by the client, not by the employer, and it is an expectation rather than a requirement. It is usually a level above the organization's internal register, and it varies by client within the same firm.

Goldman Sachs dropped the suit requirement in a March 2019 memo from David Solomon, but a client meeting still resets it. Deloitte US runs a policy it calls dress for your day, matching the outfit to the schedule.

Nothing is supplied. Everything is yours, which makes this the most expensive sector on the page despite having no written requirements at all. A suit typically runs $300 to $800, and shoes add $100 to $250.

What the register actually consists of is set out in business formal at the top end and, below it, in the guides to business casual for men and business casual for women.

Schools and public-facing institutions: Chicago Public Schools and the National Park Service

The rule is set by the audience and by practicality: a long day on foot, frequent movement, and a wide range of people to be legible to. At Chicago Public Schools it is almost always unwritten, and nothing is supplied.

Teacher clothing is the teacher's to buy, and the practical constraint is durability and cleanability rather than register, which pushes the wardrobe toward plain, washable and comfortable.

The National Park Service shows the other version of a public-facing job. Rangers wear an issued uniform in green and grey, with the flat hat and the arrowhead patch.

The pattern across the six industries

The sectors with the strictest rules are the ones where least of the outfit is your decision and least of it is your expense. A Turner site hands you a hard hat and a vest; a Cleveland Clinic nurse is issued scrubs in a role color.

The sectors with no written rules at all are the ones where the wardrobe costs the most. A first-year consultant's suit bill can outrun a year of non-slip shoes.

Where a hazard is present, the underlying obligation is the same across all six: assess the hazard, then select equipment against it, as set out in the OSHA general requirements for personal protective equipment.

In every sector, dress required by religious practice runs through an accommodation process rather than through the code, which the EEOC describes in its guidance on religious dress and grooming at work. How to find any of this out before your first day is covered in the guide to industry dress codes.

Common questions

Which of the six is hardest to dress for?

Goldman Sachs and Deloitte, and the schools, because the standard is real and invisible. A written requirement is easy once you have read it.

If protective equipment is required, do I have to buy it?

Ask, and ask the safety program rather than a colleague. Payment for required equipment is addressed within the general requirements above, and the answer is often that you do not. Steel-toe boots are the usual exception.

Can I wear my own clothing under a required coat or coverall?

Almost always, and it is worth choosing it for the day rather than treating it as invisible. It is what you will be wearing when the coat comes off.

Do these patterns hold outside the United States?

The logic does: a hazard-driven rule is specified and often supplied, a client-driven expectation is not. The specific requirements and who pays are set by local rules, so ask locally.