Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Office Depot HQ lets workers go casual
Goal is to inspire innovation after much upheaval
BOCA RATON — To say Office Depot’s headquarters employees have gone through upheaval in the past few years is an understatement.
The Boca Raton-based office supply retailer has survived a failed merger with Staples, two changes in top leadership, the acquisition and integration of OfficeMax, staff restructuring, ongoing store closures, and the continuing pressure of online competition.
But the latest adjustment is a welcome one for the 2,000 workers at headquarters: Office Depot employees now can dress casually at work — every day. That’s because new CEO Gerry Smith, who joined Office Depot in February from tech company Lenovo, has instituted casual dress.
“For Gerry, it sent a quick signal that Office Depot was changing,” said Michael R. Allison, Office Depot’s chief administrative officer.
“There has been three or four years that it has been about mergers, whether we were going to be acquired, and whether the headquarters was going to stay here. The associates have really been through a lot in that time frame,” said Allison, who has worked under four Office Depot CEOs since 2006.
Before the dress code change, Office Depot employees could wear jeans on Fridays and holidays, but were expected to wear “business casual” during the rest of the week, or even more formal clothes when meeting clients. Now workers can wear jeans any day and even T-shirts, as long as there are no vulgar words on them.
Store employees also can now wear jeans, but with the familiar red shirts that bear the company logo.
At the headquarters, wearing jeans to the office is a visual symbol of how Smith is trying to change the company, Allison said. Office Depot recently announced, for example, that it is partnering with and has invested in Centriq Technology, a San Francisco startup that will develop an app for Office Depot’s business customers.
Office Depot’s stock has been responding to the momentum, up nearly 25 percent this year, hitting a new 52-week high of $5.81 on July 13. But the retailer still struggles with lower sales and too many stores, analysts say.
To encourage workers to think more innovatively, Smith wanted to switch to
“It was awesome to see our leaders dress casual — they’re more approachable. We’re more on the same level when in meetings.” Wendy Nesbeth, senior manager, Office Depot
“hipper, more modern” dress, Allison said. “We need to think differently from just an officesupply company to more about a business that’s going to meet the needs of its customers,” he said.
America’s casual dress code stems from Silicon Valley in the 1980s, when khaki pants, buttondown shirts and sensible shoes became popular. More casual dress became steadily adopted in many other workplaces in the 1990s as a way “to reflect changing their workplace,” according to a May article by The Atlantic magazine.
Of course, South Florida with its hot and humid weather has always been more relaxed in office dress than some regions of the country, such as the Northeast, recruiters and human resource leaders agree.
Brenda Arse, branch manager for OfficeTeam in Miami, said casual dress was adopted early by “creative” professions, such as advertising and technology. “Legal and finance are switching as well. Big companies like J.P. Morgan have a more casual dress code,” she said.
The majority of office workers prefer casual dress, according to an OfficeTeam survey of 390 U.S. workers, released in June. But many said they were unclear about what is “appropriate casual dress” in the workplace. When senior managers were asked in the survey about the most common dress code violation at work, it was “overly casual” clothing, followed by showing “too much skin.”
Arse said if office dress policy is unclear, “look around how your managers dress.”
Allison said a move to casual dress was one of his first conversations he had with the new CEO. “How about tomorrow?” Smith prompted. Allison, who has a law degree, responded that he had to first draft a policy. But he did so and got a memo out within two days.
“You have to make sure when you go to a casual attire, there are some parameters. You don’t want people wearing flip flops. [Casual dress] is not beach attire,” said Allison, who during the interview was sporting jeans and a Robert Graham designer dress shirt.
Janelle Doharty, president of the Human Resource Association of Broward County, agrees, saying companies need to have a detailed policy when it comes to casual dress because it’s difficult to enforce. Especially in South Florida where some people wear flip flops out to dinner, casual dress can mean different things to people, she said.
“You can be too casual. I’ve never heard of anyone being too professional,” Doharty said.
Allison was surprised at how employees received the casual dress policy. “They couldn’t believe it. They were super excited about it — more than I thought they would have been,” he said.
Catherine Moore, 44, an analyst for Office Depot, said the casual dress code saves her time in the morning. “I love it. I told my manager it was one of the best things that happened lately. It shaves about 10 minutes getting ready in the morning. Now I know 50 percent of the equation is solved by wearing jeans.”
Moore, who on this day wore jeans topped with a dressy blouse, said she still wants to look professional. “You can’t dress like you’re going to the club or like you’re going out to do yard work,” she said.
Wendy Nesbeth, 39, senior manager in finance, said the new dress code makes her feel more comfortable at the office. She used to wear dresses and jackets most days; on this day she’s wearing a summer dress made of faded jean material.
“It was awesome to see our leaders dress casual — they’re more approachable. We’re more on the same level when in meetings,” Nesbeth said.
Jimmy Daugherty, 34, senior manager in digital marketing, said he sees the casual dress code as “a step forward for the company.”
Daugherty enlisted his wife to go shopping for appropriate casual office attire. “It was fun. I had to rethink the entire wardrobe,” said Daugherty, wearing jeans and a checked dress shirt. “We went on a shopping spree.”
Allison said a casual dress code also helps with recruiting, especially millennials — 20- and 30-somethings — “who are looking for an environment that is fun, is innovative where they can show their own style, and where they can make a difference.”