Loosen your tie – work is getting more casual

Love casual Fridays?

Well, new research suggests Monday to Thursday is getting less rigid too, as a poll carried out by Accountemps saw 91% of US managers agreeing that workplaces are less formal than they were 10 years ago.

So what’s behind the shift? Managers speculate that more relaxed social norms, and organisations catering to a younger workforce, are behind the more laid back vibe.

Where tattoos, piercings, and dyed hair were once a no-no in the office, a third of managers now agree that they’re sufficiently professional. Even the London Metropolitan Police has relaxed a ban on recruiting people with tattoos, saying they now consider body art on a “case-by-case basis”.

But it’s not just the way we look that’s changing office culture, the way we communicate is, too – with 30% of managers saying emoji use and casual lingo is now more prevalent in emails.

Self-expression is at the core of who we are and, considering we spend an average of 3,507 days at work in our lifetime, being our true selves full-time can only be a good thing.

Writing | Kat Nicholls