In a provocative article in the Financial Times, hospital doctor Sophie Harrison points out how the role of uniforms matters in the healthcare workplace. A 2007 ruling banned the traditional white coat for doctors and brought in a policy of bare arms from the elbow down, in an attempt to increase hygiene procedures. This, in turn, was designed to fight hospital transmitted infections like MRSA or c difficile.

The result though, has been to confuse patients and visitors, who struggle to identify clinicians and other hospital staff, and to create a culture of fear which has led to excessive measures in some bacteria-conscious hospital visitors.

If workplace hygiene is essential, then taking a look at premises, as well as work clothing, can be the best route. If staff have to get changed in toilets (as Harrison claims) it’s much more likely that they will come into contact with dangerous bacteria – and bacteria and viruses are much more easily spread by hand to hand contact than they are on clothing, so it’s what staff touch, more than what they wear, that matters.

And if you have an environment like a clinic, hospital or other health centre, the effect of removing distinctive uniforms may be to add to the psychological stress of the non-hospital employee – Harrison says that it’s now difficult to distinguish junior doctors, ward pharmacists and medical students by clothing alone and that can cause anger and distress in people who don’t understand why the ‘doctor’ in front of them is unable to help them.

Clearly defined uniforms are important and there’s no need to sacrifice clarity for hygiene – colour coding of tabards and different styles of short sleeved shirt and polo shirt can really help visitors to understand the distinctions in employee status and responsibility.

In one Louisiana hospital, from 2012, smoky clothing will be outlawed.  Employees who turn up in clothes smelling of smoke will be sent home. Exactly this policy is already in place at the hospital, in the wings that care for women and children, as these are the groups where third-hand smoke and other smoking contaminants have been shown to have the most far-reaching negative effects. But from July next year, the whole hospital (Christus St Frances Cabrini) will come under the same rule.

Because employees are not allowed to smoke at all during their shifts, the hospital will offer smoking cessation services based at the hospital on a 24 hour basis. Under the program employees were sent letters explaining that they had nearly one year to make adjustments to their lifestyle and comply with the new hospital policy.

There are concerns about the fairness of hospital administrators choosing to institute these kinds of sanctions on staff who may be working double and triple shifts regularly but there are also clear indications that employers are starting to consider how the behaviour of employees may reflect on an organisation.

Alternatives that might be considered to this kind of approach are offering staff a clothing bank where they can swap an item of work-branded clothing for a fresh one between shifts, thus allowing them to go and have a smoke if they wish, or, as is more commonly done in Japan, organising a shift bath, where a local gym or bathhouse offers all the members of the same shift the chance to take a shower and sauna or steam room before changing clothes and either going home or going back on-shift again. This can be a good solution for companies wishing to invest in employee health, as it gives staff an incentive to swim or visit the gym when they finish work. For smaller firms, organising a five-a-side football side or other team activity and providing sports clothing for those taking part can create a healthier way to encourage people to stop smoking.

In Burton, a group of young people involved with the Prince’s Trust are desperately seeking a project or two! They want to undertake some community work in the second two weeks of October but, as of right now, they have nothing to do.

Their previous projects have included helping local schools make nature gardens and allotments, assisting at day centres and lunch clubs and decorating community centres and church halls. They’ve even pulled on their overalls and run a car wash to raise money for a project. Now they need something big enough to keep around a dozen 16-25 year olds busy for a fortnight and they are keen to take on something big enough to allow them to manage the project, find the materials necessary to complete it, and even do the fund-raising to get started.

And in Grimsby, a woman in her seventies has made a large donation to charity after her faith in people was restored by a local business. Sylvia Smith was conned out of a large sum of money by fake roofers who pretended to mend her roof. When her story make the papers, a local business, Roofing Solutions, stepped in to do the work for free. Sylvia said, “[I went public] … to warn other people about the traders. I didn’t do it to get anything for free, so I decided to give £500 to St Andrew’s Hospice when [Roofing Solutions] refused to let me pay.”

So whether it’s young people working in the community or local businesses restoring faith in human nature, the relationship between charity, work and improving their immediate surroundings is clearly vital to people and their neighbourhoods.

In Ireland, a major energy provider has won the battle not to compensate its staff after removing the uniform privileges it had offered.

Over 600 employees of Bord Gais brought a court case claiming they deserved compensation after the withdrawal of uniform allocation. Bord Gais is a partly state-funded company whose staff said they had incurred expenses in maintaining or buying items to replace the corporate clothing that was previously issued every two years. The management countered this claim with the statement that as staff were not required to buy new uniforms, but were allowed to wear clothing of their choice, no compensation would be paid. Previously the employees got two uniform jackets, four pairs of trousers or four skirts, eight shirts, and two ties which were issued in 2004 and 2007, but not in 2009 when the company decided an allocation of workplace clothing would be reckless in the face of potential rebranded due to changing EU energy legislation.

Bord Gais has now said it will discuss a “common sense approach” to the issue of branded corporate clothing with unions with a view to cutting costs in a difficult economic environment.

Other employers may wish to look at this ruling and see if it effects their own uniform policy – in other EU countries staff are currently challenging the issuing of uniform items that have to be dry-cleaned as the employees say this is an unfair requirement. A case in Italy has been won on this basis but is being reviewed under appeal in a higher court.

Oceanair International’s staff came up with a brilliant way to help the British Red Cross, and the people who travel on their flights.  They’ve agreed to store, sort and send on to the charity the unwanted possessions of emigrants. Many of Oceanair’s clients have piles of household goods and clothing that they don’t want or need and yet don’t want to throw away when moving abroad.

The unwanted items, ranging from clothes to children’s toys to kitchen equipment are often in very good condition and the charity is able to sell them to raise funds for projects. So far more than £4,000 has been produced by selling the items in the charity’s shops, allowing vulnerable people in crisis in the UK and overseas to be helped in their most difficult experiences.

The ten lorry loads of material that have been transferred from Oceanair’s terminal to the charity’s shops have been pretty varied – including three pianos!

There are some concerns in the USA about the role of uniform clothing in spreading disease in hospitals. The item of concern is scrubs, the overall style clothing worn by nurses and support workers in healthcare and the fear is that without proper guidelines, staff may spread dangerous bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA.
The problem may arise when people wear their uniforms outside of hospital settings – such as on their way to and from work. This would permit outside infections to travel into a hospital setting on the clothing but also give these transmittable conditions the chance to leave the hospital and contaminate the outside world.

Many institutions insist that people do not travel to work in their uniform clothing and leave it behind when they depart so it can be specially laundered to destroy any bacteria, but some do not and this is what is worrying health specialists.

Prince William had a different concern when choosing the uniform to wear to his wedding: he didn’t want to be suffering from heat-stroke! The tailor who made his uniform says that William ‘knew all the cameras and lights would make it very hot in the Abbey’ and they worked together to ‘get the look he wanted while using material to absorb the heat and make sure he didn’t pass out in front of two billion people across the world.’

In designing the outfits, which were hand-made, a special pocket was included to hold the ring so that Prince Harry couldn’t lose it!

As the days get shorter, appropriate work clothing becomes essential.

Making sure your workforce is properly dressed when working, especially for those working outside, can seem simple but it’s a major way of reducing injuries and risk of harm which means more work hours are devoted to work and fewer demands are made on the sick pay and physio budgets of large businesses in particular.

There are substantial safety risks to working outdoors in autumn and winter, ranging from sight to footing to weather conditions. The highest rate of workplace injuries in the UK is Northern Ireland, where a report this month says that the cost to the local economy there from work related injuries, ill-health and non-injury accidents is around £250 million per annum, substantially higher than in Great Britain. One reason for this higher level may be the relative importance of the construction industry in Northern Ireland in recent years, which may have caused a disproportionally higher rate of injury as a result of a disproportionally higher rate of construction work as a whole.

Hi-vis gear allows employees to be safe and be seen. It provides an employer with peace of mind about their liability and the employee with peace of mind about their visibility, especially in poor weather. Good outdoor clothing such as gloves, hats and even armbands for those who may be spending time outdoors but not usually employed there, such as staff changing display material or putting up workplace Christmas decorations can be literal life-savers.

A firm based in Halifax, Yorkshire, has undergone a rebranding and as a result, it’s helped fund the Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA).

Casual clothing saves lives

The construction company had dozens of bags uniform clothing with the old logo, ranging from health and safety wear, through to fleeces and hats and casual clothing – and it recycled them all through YAA which works with a partner to actually sell all donated clothing overseas. This process raises up to £250,000 for the charity to fund the flying ambulance service which helps save the lives of people like distant hill farmers and those stranded by weather or accidents in Yorkshire’s picturesque but remote areas.

Back to school for teachers

On the other hand, uniform could be a painful issue for schools. The new Education Secretary Michael Gove wants a dress code for teachers because he thinks both parents and pupils respond better to a smartly-dressed teacher.

But while headteachers can establish a dress code they are not able to impose clothing rules that could be considered as sexual, racial or religious discrimination. And that’s not the only problem – in 2008, a maths teacher was fined after insisting on his right to wear trainers and tracksuit bottoms rather than a suit. His argument was that he had taught at the school in question for a decade and a half without discipline problems and should be allowed to continue as he was. While the matter was resolved, it doesn’t bode well for the future – we expect children to try and contravene rules about uniforms, but not teachers!

In New York, a female banker is taking her former employers to court over sacking her because she was ‘too attractive’.  Debrahlee Lorenzana is claiming that Citibank fired her because her pencil skirts and fitted suits were distracting male colleagues from their work.

According to her complaint, she was ordered not to wear high heels because they drew attention to her figure and stopped men from working, but female colleagues who wore similar clothes were not told to change their appearance because, according to Ms Lorenzana, they were less attractive than her. She was also given a list of the clothes her employer wanted her to stop wearing to the office – she was asked by her employer not to wear: turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, fitted business suits, or other properly tailored clothing and that she shouldn’t wear high heels either.

So what’s the law? Well it varies from country to country, but it is discriminatory to insist that people dress in a fashion that is different to their colleagues, so if everybody else is wearing casual clothing, you can’t insist one person dresses formally if they are doing the same job. On the other hand, work-specific clothing can be insisted on, particularly if people do jobs that have health or safety implications: catering staff must dress in a way that guarantees hygiene so aprons and hats are not just required but legally stipulated, and builders and other construction workers need to have safety clothing that protects them, and the public, from harm.

The Crisis charity’s 2008 Reverse Graffiti campaign has become one of the benchmarks for city-based charities.

•    The aim – Crisis wanted to highlight the fact that although where were now fewer people now living on the streets of major British cities, sizeable hidden homeless population of thousands were leading ‘invisible lives’ in hostels and temporary accommodation that didn’t address their needs to a stable home, training and a chance to find permanent employment.
•   The process – rather than using paint or spray cans, water was used through a sprayer to clear dirt from city walls through a stencil in the shape of a homeless person in shapeless clothing huddled against a wall. The shape was actually made up of the words ‘most homeless people have moved on but their problems haven’t gone away’ and included the charity’s website address. 15 teams dressed in Crisis branded clothing worked through a single night across London to create ‘reverse’ graffiti that was seen by thousands of commuters on their way to work the next morning. Because the graffiti is actually clean wall, rather than dirty, it’s not classed as vandalism or damage to property.
•    The outcome – the campaign, which Crisis featured on its Facebook page, resulted in 50 PR follow-ups, more than 120,000 visits to the Crisis website and 60 new regular donors being recruited.