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HP R&D Starts Enforcing a Business Casual Dress Code 480

An anonymous reader writes: HP was once known as a research and technology giant, a company founded in a garage by a pair of engineers and dominated by researchers. Whilst a part of that lives on in Agilent any hope for the rest of the company has now died with the announcement that HP R&D will have to dress in business "smart casual" with T-shirts, baseball caps, short skirts, low cut dresses and sportswear all being banned.
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HP R&D Starts Enforcing a Business Casual Dress Code

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  • um...yay? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:18PM (#50182143)

    Seriously, who gives a shit.

    • Re:um...yay? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:04PM (#50182367)

      Well, this shirt:
      I don't care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet your shirt is sexist and ostracizing [imgur.com]
      generated a shitstorm on the internet. So possibly HP management is feeling a bit gunshy. Nothing like nasty, screaming little facists trying to ruin your career over the irrelevant to ruin your day. Or week. Or month. Or even your career.

    • Re:um...yay? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @05:01PM (#50182591) Homepage Journal

      Well - if you start to push dress code at a work place it's a sure sign of that work place going down. There are more important issues to take care of for HP. And IBM also have serious problems.

      At least as long as you dress reasonably well I don't see a problem.

      • Re:um...yay? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @05:30PM (#50182703)

        IBM actually did very well with their dress code. It was a sales ploy, the company wanted to project an aura of reliable professionalism and they did.

        • Re: um...yay? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @05:44PM (#50182745)

          I can understand a reasonable dress code to keep flip flops and non work attire to a minimum.

          However, dressing like a professional doth not a professional make. HP would do well to remember that.

          • However, dressing like a professional doth not a professional make. HP would do well to remember that.

            I worked for a software house around 2000. They said they expected "professional" attire, including collared shirts (men & women) and knee-length skirts or dockers and better for pants. No jeans.

            Now, that might actually seem reasonable... except for the fact that I sat in a cubical doing my programming and seldom even saw my co-workers, much less anyone else. So who the hell was I supposed to impress? My boss? There were only 5 programmers in the whole place, each to our own space. I seldom even glan

            • by Ramze ( 640788 )

              Psychology -- the theory being that putting on work clothes puts you into a different frame of mind which is conducive towards work.

              Frankly, I think it's BS, but that's the real answer. The HR droids believe (and lots of psychological experiments show) that when people put on certain clothes - especially uniforms - they tend to change their behaviors and thought processes. People who wear their pajamas all day tend to be calmer and lazier. Those who wear suits and ties tend to be more active. Women

              • I tried. Wore suits for about 6 months. They felt uncomfortable. I was always wary of spilling a drop of juice or rubbing onto something dusty, my shirt wrists got dirty as shit by mid-day, I felt ridiculous overall (because I have long hair and long beard).
                And yes it affected my productivity. Negatively, and very much so.

                When I got back into jeans and $5 T-Shirts, man, it was heaven!

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 )

          I cannot trust a tech who dresses up like a fucking Ken doll.

      • Re:um...yay? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @07:13PM (#50183017)

        With regard to IBM, having met one of their highly-paid technical consulting teams, I know what their problem is: Incompetence coupled with arrogance and no social graces. They also failed to solve their task for 3 years, when something similar took me a year to get to run reliably. Them being IBM, they actually got paid more for failing repeatedly, so at the moment the incompetence still works out for them, but eventually the customers will not be willing to pay a fortune for trash.

  • So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:20PM (#50182147) Homepage Journal
    Who cares? Are that many geeks worn down by the brutal requirement to wear something slightly more formal than gym clothes?
    • Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:23PM (#50182165)

      Yes.

      Seriously, the dress code at work is the number one thing I hate about my job right now. I don't feel comfortable in business casual. Plus, when you consider that HP folks already get little vacation time unless they've been there for 20 years. I got past the first round for the HP consulting division and bowed out after I saw the vacation time.

    • Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:36PM (#50182239) Journal
      Decades ago, at Texas Instruments in Dallas, one of my colleagues was almost fired for wearing shorts in the middle of summer on a Saturday. After that incident, the dress code was changed to allow more casual dress outside normal working hours.
    • by Lead Butthead ( 321013 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:45PM (#50182285) Journal

      HP management is looking for scapegoat for their incompetence and has finally ran out of (other) scapegoats.

      A sure sign of a company in trouble is when assholes at the top begins to blame people at the bottom for all the failings. I expect to see a lot of people shorting HP soon..

      • by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:57PM (#50182317)
        Perhaps they're also looking for ways to annoy enough people into quitting so that they don't have the pay out any severance when the next round of layoffs starts. This seems like something that would push a few people over the edge, though I suspect it might be some of their better workers. Then again, the current suit only cares long enough to hit some bonuses based on poorly chosen metrics in order to cash out with a golden parachute while the company collapses.
    • Re:So what? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:52PM (#50182307)

      Who cares?

      I care. A dress code sends a message about a company's culture. The stricter the code, the more that company cares about having a professional appearance, and less about professional performance.

      • Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:54PM (#50182567)

        And this is what Logic 101 would call a non sequitur.

        the more that company cares about having a professional appearance,

        Yes.

        and less about professional performance.

        No.

        They are not mutually exclusive.

        The institution I've been with the strictest dress code was the private school I went to - it also had near top national academic performance. The principle was not that people were required to waste time worrying about what they wore, but that people didn't worry about what they wore, as everyone was wearing the same thing: a well-fitting, comfortable, smart uniform.

        • They are not mutually exclusive.

          Yes they are. If a finite percentage of your evaluation is based on how you dress, then it is a logical necessity for other things to count for less. I have worked for a business that required ties. I have also worked for companies that required slacks and collared shirts. I currently work for a company that is fine with shorts, sandals and tank tops. The tie company was a defense contractor, that sucked up lots of tax dollars, but never delivered a working product. The collared shirt and slacks compan

      • Re:So what? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:57PM (#50182575)

        On my first two commercial jobs (an aerospace giant, then IT in a California retail chain) it was still suits, ties and white shirts for all.
        What did the women wear, you ask? What women?

      • Re:So what? (Score:5, Funny)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @05:30PM (#50182705) Journal

        I care. A dress code sends a message about a company's culture. The stricter the code, the more that company cares about having a professional appearance, and less about professional performance.

        Is that why these guys were never able to land people on the moon?

        https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a... [nasa.gov]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What purpose does dressing uncomfortably serve?

      The MBA morons that judge based on clothes and not substance of ideas are what needs to go.

    • I don't think I ever showed up for a job wearing gym clothes. But jeans and comfortable short-sleeve polo type shirts, or even t-shirts in the summer months, and tennis-shoes? Definitely!

      At one of my previous jobs, they hired a new woman in the H.R. department, and all of a sudden she decided she was going to enforce new dress codes. The word was, I.T. and software developers would no longer be allowed to wear jeans. Thankfully, our best Java developer was an ex-hippie who viewed this as an opportunity to g

  • "HP was once known as a research ant technology giant..."

    I hear ant technology is the wave of the future!

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:25PM (#50182183) Journal
    This seems like a logical step to encourage an atmosphere of professionalism in which HP's remaining employees can train their H1B replacements.
  • by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:31PM (#50182217) Homepage Journal

    HP tried to step back in history today to more profitable and professional times, unfortunately reality refused to cooperate and they were still bleeding money like a sieve. Worse, their engineers were now leaving because they were pissed off by the dress code.

  • by rrohbeck ( 944847 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:42PM (#50182265)

    ... in severance packages. A hostile work environment will definitely reduce personnel.

    Of course the smart people who have no problem finding another job will leave first.

    • by BenJeremy ( 181303 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:09PM (#50182391)

      This.

      First pulling people back into the office after some have been telecommuting for years, often as HP's facilities have shrunk in most places - they are now expected to make the drive or relocate, regardless of the distance.

      Our team has exactly 4 people in this state, and two of them will absolutely HAVE to quit if not given exemptions (which seems unlikely), and another will probably be gone by the end of the year.

      They are effectively putting additional costs onto their employees, and want them to quit. Sadly, this (downright evil) tactic usually results in your best people leaving... and finding out that HP doesn't even pay engineers 75% of what their competitors do in the same geographical areas.

      All that remains are the employees who either lack the confidence in their skills to feel that they are employable elsewhere... or those employees who lack the skills.

      I don't think Meg has thought her cunning little plan all the way through.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        All that remains are the employees who either lack the confidence in their skills to feel that they are employable elsewhere... or those employees who lack the skills.

        While I can certainly see how the first one would happen, if one actually lacks the skills to do their job, then shouldn't they have been fired already? Not being productive enough *is* a reason to let someone go.

        • by BenJeremy ( 181303 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @06:55PM (#50182959)

          The second happens when people join, typically fresh out of school, and never build their skills, always kind of hanging on in the fringe. It's quite easy in a large company like HP, too... it's harder to fire the same guy you wouldn't hire,so to speak.

          A recent "Town Hall" had an executive telling us all that a manager would re-evaluate the positions that were left by personnel quitting (imagine that), including who they'd hire in that spot.

          He also expected us to report to offices, even if there was no space, because engineers love to work off of 15" laptop screens, on laptop keyboards, while sitting on a bench at a cafeteria table (yes, he said we should make the "up to 95 mile" drive even if it means working in the cafeteria) as others wander around, eating and talking. The ultimate open office space.

          So when a manager has to fire a direct report, it's a tough proposition... fire a warm body and possibly lose the spot outright, or let them hang in and keep your manpower up enough to keep your own job? They know these guys are borderline, but a big company is a machine unto itself.

          If they do fire anybody... it usually ends up being based solely on salary and location, based on what I saw this past week - they WFRed a bunch of guys who were responsible for millions of lines of good, solid code. Tested, true libraries that have run for ages in hundreds of thousands of PCs.... people tossed aside on a whim from on higher up than the managers they report to. Why? Because again, a big company is a machine unto itself... often the actions of execs and the upper management is pure quackery, because they can be just as clueless as anybody else in an organization; it's also a bit worse, because it's a club of privileged people who protect each other from personal failure, even at the expense of the companies they run.

  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:42PM (#50182267)

    ... strutting around in their low cut shirts and bare midriffs... And do we really need to see your tramp stamps?

    In other news, Jerry that keeps showing up to work in his S&M gimp suit will switch to a more work appropriate polo shirt. Thanks for ruining it for everyone Jerry... you jackass.

    • ... strutting around in their low cut shirts and bare midriffs... And do we really need to see your tramp stamps?

      In other news, Jerry that keeps showing up to work in his S&M gimp suit will switch to a more work appropriate polo shirt. Thanks for ruining it for everyone Jerry... you jackass.

      No the guy in the gimp suit works in hr its the uniform

  • by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:42PM (#50182271)

    I care about the quality of your hardware and software, not about what your engineers are wearing. Or, for the "anonymous reader" and the understandably anonymous Dice editors, "waring".

    • For those of you following along at home, they've corrected "sportsware" to "sportswear" in the summary. I guess someone does read the snarky comments.

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:47PM (#50182295)
    The HP that was great became Agilent.

    .
    The divisions that were left behind when Agilent was spun off were Just Another Company, with nothing special to speak of.

  • by melted ( 227442 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:50PM (#50182303) Homepage

    Basically, a way to get people to leave, without going through the trouble of laying them off or providing severance. The often overlooked part of this is of course that good people leave first, and mouth breathers and managers of all sorts hang on for dear life since they are unemployable elsewhere.

  • The company may have been founded in a garage, but it didn't stay there. What was HP like when it got out of garage? Did HP really have a reputation for people dressing like slobs? I'd suspect that people generally dressed ok and didn't need to be told how to dress for work.

  • Sound pretty stupid (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @03:57PM (#50182319)
    Normally you reserve good attire when there is client contact. Having formal attire for technician and engineer when there is no client contact is contra productive, you force people into a certain fashion which they might be uncomfortable with, for no good reason. That is a sure sign a hierarchy has lost sight of what is essential , and instead concentrate on rules which makes no sense , as to show they are doing "something". I expect no good future strategy from them from now onward.
    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @06:59PM (#50182977)

      We once had a plant manager who enforced a strict professional attire for all. He got everyone in the company to wear shirt and tie even when they had to wear safety overalls over the top.

      That all changed one day when he was visiting the workshop and got his tie stuck on a piece of rotating equipment (drill press as the story went). After nearly losing his head in the literal sense the dress code was relaxed leaving everyone scratching their heads wondering why a chemical plant with no customer facing positions had a dress code to begin with.

  • Picture this at a management meeting:

    "Our stock is at an all-time low, profits are down, moral is gone, all our good engineers have left. What are we gonna do?"

    "I know! We'll ban casual dress, that'll solve the issues."

    (Boss) "That's brilliant! Raises for everyone!"

    __

    Something like that perhaps? H and P must be spinning in their graves...

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @07:25PM (#50183063)

      It's something I never really understood. And it seems to be something that is actually pretty much an US thing. I don't see the same clinging to dress codes over here in Europe.

      How the heck can it be important how someone dresses who is in no contact with customers? I can see the necessity of "professional" dressing when one has to do with customers. That's a given. You need to follow the rites of the human tribe. Dressing up in a similar way as the one you get into contact with makes him identify you as "one of his kind" and causes him to like you. He looks like me, so he's one of my tribe. That's deep in our ancestor's brain. That's why three piece suits are pretty much a necessity in management meetings because managers look at you and identify you as one of them if you're in the same three piece junk.

      It's also, btw, the reason why techs don't like managers and why any tech dressing up as a manager immediately loses support with his peers. He's no longer "one of us". He's "one of them" now.

      And no, I don't digress, actually, that's exactly the problem these things create. Because "business dress code" identifies a tech as "not one of us anymore". We not only don't want to wear that junk, we also don't like people wearing it. If anything, it alienates people.

  • by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:08PM (#50182385)

    I would wager that what happened was some executive who thinks he or she is too high and mighty to do something like... notify anybody AT ALL that they're bringing important people through... decided to talk up how professional and awesome their employees are and then bring them through, only to catch the overweight bearded guy wearing sandals in the middle of eating a messy burger. Of course the problem is that the guy was wearing sandals!

    I've witnessed this multiple times. One executive told me about how he never knows in advance when investors are coming through. I asked if they just walk up and down our street and randomly poke their head into our place. The answer to that question was a suggestion that I should update my resume.

  • Apparently dressing well improves the holistic ambiance of a brain struggling with esoteric things like coding.

    With fertilizer like that, I'm sure their lawns are looking great in spite of the drought. On a scale of 1 to 10 on the shittitude meter, that's probably like a 12 or 13.

  • I'd probably wear a nice, not short skirt because that would be against the rules, but a nice mid length skirt.

  • Meh (Score:5, Informative)

    by mordred99 ( 895063 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:21PM (#50182467)

    First off the article linked was poorly written. It is only their professional services arm that has these new restrictions. R&D does not. Secondly who cares? I prefer business casual over some of the other forms of outfits that you can wear. Yes I can wear sneakers (trainers) and they might be very comfortable, but I buy an $80 pair of shoes, wear them every day, and they last 5 years. That is not all that expensive. Khaki's are lighter than Denim Jeans .. so I prefer them. Hey, less ball sweat. $40 a pair (you need five). I have light button down shirts that I wear over my under shirt and have never had a problem of being hot, or feeling constrained. Again, spend $40 on each shirt and you will only have to replace them if you get fat (or skinny) or after like 5 years. So lets see. $500 for 5 years worth of NICE clothes you can wear anywhere (church, wedding, christmas dinner, etc.) and you are more comfortable than when you wear jeans and a polo.

    Of course this is all subjective. My current job allows people to wear jeans instead of Khaki's. I told my boss that I will never wear jeans, but if he lets me wear shorts that will be a different story. I would prefer to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but it is work. Seriously. If you are customer facing, it is not hard to look nice and professional. If you are a back room guy - Who cares.

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @04:37PM (#50182517)
    That way you can't tell who's incompetent by just looking at who's dressed up anymore.
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @06:58PM (#50182969)

    Well, technically we do have a dress code. You are required to wear pants. Or skirts if you prefer. And it is mandatory to wear it in such a way that it covers your genitals and buttocks. You are encouraged to wear something covering your torso. It would be nice if this had at least something that could resemble sleeves, however short they may be. And shoes would be encouraged but more out of comfort than necessity.

    It is a bit more strict if you're in direct contact with the customer, granted. And no, we're not some hip little start up. We're a medium sized bank with a few centuries of tradition behind it and a rather conservative customer stock. But we're IT security. We don't get into contact with the customer. Why the fuck should we give a shit how someone dresses as long as it's clean and doesn't show me some part of his/her anatomy that should better stay concealed?

  • by hambone142 ( 2551854 ) on Saturday July 25, 2015 @08:10PM (#50183189)

    First of all, this fourth "wonder of the world" CEO needs to disassociate the name "HP" and "Hewlett-Packard" from the company. It's an insult to its founders.

    R&D is typically closed doors to the public and should be for I.P. purposes.

    If all the remains of HP has to tout in their R&D lab is how the engineers dress, that means there isn't much of substance to demonstrate the "wow effect" to outsiders. That says a lot about HP.

    HP has undergone 16 years of cost cutting (and counting) and their product quality shows the effects of that short term goal (so managers can get their bonuses).

    I will not buy another HP product. Frankly, their quality has become abysmal.

  • by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Monday July 27, 2015 @09:25AM (#50189561) Homepage

    If you like dress codes, you'll love Booz, Allen, Hamilton. Freshly pressed suits, at all times. If you're lucky, you might be allowed to take your jacket off after hours.

    http://www.indeed.com/forum/cm... [indeed.com]

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