Smarten up! Barclays boss puts foot down on flip flops

FORGET smart suits, crisp blouses and shoes so shiny you can see your face in them.

For staff at Barclaycard, the years have seen the dress code become a little more... casual.

Now, in a bid to smarten up the bank’s corporate culture, Barclays boss John McFarlane has issued a list of banned clothing – and flip flops are at the top of his hit list. The chairman, who sacked chief executive Antony Jenkins last month over lacklustre results, said he no longer wants to see bare toes, T-shirts, jeans or trainers at the bank’s Canary Wharf head office at One Churchill Place in London.

However the question of whether women can wear open toed shoes under the strict new rules is, apparently, a ‘grey area’. The new rules are focused on Barclaycard staff, who have a looser dress code than other employees of the bank.

A memo was sent to them yesterday by the division’s interim chief executive Amer Sajed, based on comments by Mr McFarlane.

It read: ‘Over the past couple of years a range of different dress codes have emerged in our One Churchill Place office and, to ensure a consistent experience for clients, customers and colleagues the dress code has now been reviewed and updated.

‘So with effect from September 1, all colleagues have been asked to adopt “business casual” as the dress standard when in the office, other than on Friday which will remain a designated “dress down/casual dress” day.’

But anyone planning to wear flip flops on dress down Fridays will be disappointed. The ban remains in place on those days too.