Investing in a professional companywide uniform is a well-established and widely proven marketing tool. Uniforms are a cohesive way of improving your business image and increasing brand awareness while also confidently extending your workplace culture and positively impacting the customer experience.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to put a professional uniform together for your business. But where do you start?
12 Things To Consider When Choosing Uniforms For Employees
When choosing a uniform for staff, there’s a bit more to it than just picking out a tee shirt and cap—wondering how to design the perfect uniform? We have put together this handy guide to help you get the basics right. Read on to discover the top 12 things to remember when designing a professional employee uniform.
1. Industry Regulations
Ensuring your workplace uniform is compliant with the necessary industry regulations is a priority; otherwise, the whole process will be worthless. Taking into account any specific rules and regulations surrounding workwear in your industry is an essential first step in designing the best uniform.
In Australia, a range of government standards outline the required obligations for clothing across various industry sectors. An excellent example is the Hi-Vis workwear worn by the rail industry workers. Their clothing safety standards are built around the type of clothing worn, its colours, fabrics and the placement of reflective materials etc.
2. Safety First
Another equally important factor when choosing staff uniforms is ensuring your employees’ ongoing safety. Although uniforms must adhere to all relevant safety standards (both externally (governmental) and internally (company-specific)), wearing uniforms that are poorly designed can quickly endanger employees’ health and safety in ways that could have been prevented.
This could mean anything from loose-fitting clothing that could get caught in heavy machinery to using unsuitable fabrics or colours. Some examples of safety-based uniform essentials might be flame retardant clothing, steel toe boots, and PPE.
3. The Fabric
Choosing the right fabric is a crucial step in the uniform design process. A few of the main characteristics that need to be considered are breathability, flexibility and visual appearance. Employees who are required to bend, lift and move about regularly on the job will need flexible materials with high breathability.
In contrast, those working outdoors will require some degree of weatherproofing capabilities, and UV protection, etc. Company image is also a factor in the fabric choice, some fabrics won’t stand up to repeated washing or everyday use while still looking good, meaning high replacement rates or employees might end up looking slightly shabby. Fabric choice also relies heavily on appearances, for example, sweatshirt fabric may not be the right brand image for office workers.
4. Comfort/Practicality
Comfort is the key to a uniform worn well. Suppose employees don’t feel comfortable in what they are wearing? In that case, their confidence slumps and, as a result, customer service levels, thus negating one of the benefits of having a uniform, to begin with. A high level of comfort means a more practical uniform that focuses on making the job easier, not harder. It is also more likely to be used regularly rather than staff making personal non-uniform substitutions.
Fabric quality is a large factor in comfort, as is the garment’s design and practicality on the job. An example of poor comfort and practicality would be providing an outdoor jacket to workers that was not waterproof, rendering the jacket useless and forcing staff to provide their own makeshift solutions.
5. Colour Consistency
The number one rule for uniform colours is that they should always reflect your brand. Colour consistency is the key to branding success, now is not the time to go rogue and introduce a brand new colour scheme to the mix – unless rebranding is your primary purpose, of course! Always stick with established colours from your regular branding and/or logo, perhaps mixed with elements of black or white for neutral additions if necessary.
If in doubt, do a bit of research into the psychology of colours and the role the different colours play in marketing. So remember, if your signage, stationery, logo and other marketing material is red – stick with red, don’t go choosing bright green tee shirts for your new uniform!
6. Style Strategies
The style of your uniform can make a direct statement about your brand. Just be sure it makes that right statement. Good work uniform design relies on knowing the brand inside out, believing in the customer demographic and having a good understanding of employee responsibilities.
There is no point in designing an ultra-cool uniform if it doesn’t make any sense in real world terms. Style trends are great, but remember to consider your whole marketing strategy, making sure the style of your uniform fits – both the business and the person!
7. Durability
One of the most important factors when choosing the right uniform is how well your uniforms stand up to daily wear and tear. Nobody wants to have to purchase new uniforms all the time or deal with the ongoing hassle of faulty uniforms needing constant repairs.
Durability is all about ensuring the uniform lasts as long as possible while maintaining a well-presented appearance. Generally speaking, you want to look for quality garments which in most cases can be narrowed down to two elements – quality fabrics and quality manufacturing. It is also necessary to consider the daily duties performed by employees to assess the level of durability required.
8. Company Branding
When uniforms are implemented well in the workplace, they become a prominent visual part of your brand. In doing so, uniforms represent and communicate the very core of your business by way of its employees, it is vital that this form of communication is well represented. Adding your brand logo or company imagery to uniforms is a great way of going about this.
Whether you choose embroidery or screen printing, there are pretty much unlimited options for adding your brand to all of the usual uniform staples. See here for more on the pros and cons of embroidery vs screen-printed apparel. When it comes to branding uniforms, always remember that consistent branding choices help increase customer’s familiarity with your company. This familiarity increases trust in your reputation and, by association, your brand – so it follows that ultimately, customers who trust in your brand are far more likely to buy from you.
9. Upfront And Ongoing Costs
The cost of uniforms will always be a consideration for any business. Therefore, it makes good business sense to set a budget and stick to it. A few tips for budgeting for uniforms are to be realistic, consider the short and long-term costs, and think about primary goals and what you are trying to achieve.
Will there be multiple options for different employees? How often are new employees hired? How often do the uniforms need to be replaced? When considering uniform costs, set your focus on finding the perfect balance between quality and quantity, and you can’t go wrong.
10. Consultation With Employees
Allowing for employee input is a great way of getting some real-world feedback before accidentally committing to the wrong kind of uniforms. Consulting employees can avoid some of the most common uniform mistakes such as impracticality, unsuitability for the tasks at hand and poor wearability.
Think of it as part of ensuring employee satisfaction with the new uniforms (and the associated pride and uptake) by designing uniforms that employees like to wear. This means something tasteful and appropriate for all ages, sizes and genders that remains respectful to both employees and the company.
11. Greater Personalisation
Budget permitting, you might want to think about the personalisation of uniforms. This usually entails displaying employee names and or roles on their uniform items. Meaning the uniform is designed specifically for each individual employee.
For some businesses, incorporating the names of employees into the design may be beneficial, however, there can be a number of privacy issues surrounding this concept as well as additional costs in the case of high staff turnover.
12. Finding A Trusted Supplier
Now you know how you want this uniform to look, how many you need, what extras you want to include such as corporate branding and how much you want to spend; the next step is finding a reliable supplier who can meet these requirements in a timely manner.
It may seem a little challenging to find a good supplier who can meet your quantity, quality and design needs, but they are out there. A few things to look for in a supplier are; good quality products, reliability and flexibility. One of the best ways to go about finding a great supplier is to ask around, if you see a good uniform on another similar business’s employees, why not ask them who their supplier is? You could also do a bit of research online via customer reviews and social media.
Interested in finding out more about the benefits of branded workwear? Or have some questions about choosing the right uniform for your business – get in touch with the wholesale workwear and uniform experts at Big Branding in Seaford, Victoria.
