1. When I first started my business, I took a pretty hands off approach to
management. I felt that, if I paid my workers well and trusted them, they would
do well by me. At first it worked, but soon I got a few bad eggs in the office.
It wasn't much at first – the occasional late day, too many breaks, slowdowns
now and then – but soon, it piled up. For a time, to be honest, I felt like I
had a full-scale revolt on my hands! I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to
fire people, but I knew I had to maintain a higher standard of workplace
discipline. I asked my friend who is an expert in corporate management what to
do, and his answer surprised me. He told me to get some corporate apparel.
Corporate uniforms, he explained, would set a new standard for behavior in the
workplace. I was pretty skeptical to say the least. I was never a fan of school
uniforms when I was a kid, and to introduce corporate apparel to the workplace
would feel like hypocrisy now. Nonetheless, he convinced me. I figured that I
would give it a try. After all, buying corporate clothing wasn't that expensive.
Compared to the amount of money that we were losing to workplace inefficiency,
corporate apparel would cost nothing. I bought some corporate uniforms that very
day.
I was surprised by how much things changed at the business. It was like day and
night. Of course, I did not introduce the corporate apparel in a vacuum. I
introduced a formal set of rules, which I made all of them study at length. I
talked about some of the disappointments I've had with the workplace environment
and how I expected them to change. Although there were a lot of groans, I could
tell that I had made a dent. The corporate apparel they wore was symbolic of the
rule change going on in the office. People were wearing new clothes, and they
were going to be expected to have a new attitude.
I have to admit the corporate embroidered apparel looked sharp, and my workers
seemed a lot more lively when wearing it. They were suddenly a team as opposed
to a loose collection of individuals who didn't really want to be there. I think
that my corporate management played some part in it, but I also think that the
clothing was important.