Setting up a start-up of your own? They say uniformity is the key to success.
Your brand uniforms represent a large part of the front face of your business. When clients come to you, the logo and branding, color scheme and potentially other useful information (like your web address) should be the first thing that the see. You can achieve this with signage, of course, but there are multiple reasons why outfitting your staff in matching uniforms is a better answer.
Why Businesses Use Employee Uniforms
New and old businesses alike rely upon employee uniforms to set their businesses apart from others. There are many reasons why they do this. The business can easily promote a sense of fellowship and team spirit among colleagues if everyone feels part of the same team. It is also true that this type of branding and logo awareness is a constant source of advertising to the business.
Employees are easier to spot by the consumer if they are all wearing a recognizable uniform. There are also hygiene and equality issues associated with providing uniforms. For example, an individual member of staff might not have the money to buy a fresh set of country club sweaters when they first join your workforce. Providing them with the uniform that matches their brethren means they do not feel or look out of place.
Let’s look at why uniforms are so beneficial to your new brand in greater detail.
Reasons Why Uniforms are a Brand Essential
Are uniforms truly essential to your operations? That depends on your daily business. Here are reasons to consider outfitting your employees in a uniform from the get-go.
Uniform Promotes Branding
As covered above, uniforms promote branding. Your employees may even dress at home and catch a bus to work, promoting your business while they are not even in the workplace. This is great advertising.
It Adds to Professionalism
When consumers use your store or club, they will meet a presentable, professional work environment. Everyone matches, so there is no confusion over who is who. Employees with uniforms present themselves as credible experts. An employee in jeans and a t-shirt doesn’t quite have that same effect.
Your Building is Safer
If you operate a large business, there is a real chance that you won’t know all your employees on a first name basis. Instead, they will come and go in accordance with staff turnover. This could leave you with a building full of employees that you don’t know. The easiest way to spot who shouldn’t be there is by looking for the person without a uniform on.
Your Staff are Safer.
If your employees also go by the rule that each other employee will have a uniform, then they are also safer in your employ. Let’s not forget other uniform equipment which crosses into safety gear territory. For example, a high vis shirt on a building site marks an employee out, but also protects them from going unseen and becoming injured as a result. In the same way, chef whites will protect the chef from burns and oil splashes. Steel toe capped boots will protect your employee’s feet from falling knives or hard flooring.
Uniforms Promote Equality
Employees from under-privileged backgrounds can immediately begin from the same level as those with wealthier backgrounds. When you give your employees uniforms, you give them the same status as everyone else on their team. They do not need to worry about what they will wear and what is clean or not. The application of a uniform to a company is like the application of school uniforms in the way it promotes equality.
As well as promoting better hygiene among your team, you also give them the security of knowing that they will have the clothes when they need them. As a further consideration, washing uniforms within the workplace could help keep things equal.
Improved Customer Service
That’s right, using uniforms improves customer service. Easily recognizing a sales assistant is far better for sales than having your clients wander around your store asking each other for pricing.
Uniformity is the Key to Customer Service
All this comes back to a solitary focus: that the customer’s perception is what drives your sales. This is why businesses spend years assimilating a picture of their perfect target market. Knowing who your customer is makes your job easier – so flip that back on the consumer.
Imagine going into a store and not knowing who owned the shop. Now imagine trying to buy something in that store. Who do you ask for help? Ultimately, taking the chance to leave out uniforms means relying solely on the abilities of store greeters.
Is your business willing to take that chance?
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