There are many reasons for a company to provide workwear and uniforms for their employees. The benefits include creating a great first impression of your business, standing out from the competition, building confidence and trustworthiness in your brand and a sense of pride and belonging amongst your staff.
When choosing staff uniforms, there are lots to consider; here are our five top tips!
1. Fit For Purpose
An essential thing to ask yourself is whether a garment is practical – Are your employees able to carry out their job fully in the chosen workwear?
This question considers staff safety; whether the fabrics are durable and comfortable for staff to wear. For example, ensuring safety for particular sectors or job roles, like industrial and trade workwear, may require specially designed fabrics, such as flame retardant materials for welders, or have moisture-wicking properties for chefs.
Looking at the tasks of different employees can be insightful. If staff are bending and lifting as part of their role, look at fabrics that won’t wear easily and those with a stretch. Ensuring staff are comfortable in their workwear will positively impact morale and productivity.
2. Colours Do Matter
Colour is registered by the brain before an image or text and increases brand recall and recognition by up to 80%.
In a competitive marketplace, careful consideration of colours can mean the difference between your business being identified or not.
There are some basic psychology principles attached to colour. Yellow can signify positivity and happiness, whereas colours used in care environments can be important when considering uniforms because blue is soothing and can lower heart rates.
There is also practicality to colour picking; uniforms worn in dirty environments should be darker, but that’s just our opinion!
3. What’s Your Style
Along with colour, your uniform style can also say a lot about your brand.
When we think of iconic brand uniforms like British Airways, or UPS, for example, this instantly sparks brand recognition of those companies and the values they stand for.
What impression do you want your employees to leave… professional, casual, relaxed or fun?
A polo shirt is an excellent way to balance professional with casual. Still, a boutique hotel may want to create a different first impression to ensure their staff attract the right clientele; shirts and waistcoats, perhaps.
4. Measuring You Up
Consider what garments you need for each job role and member of staff. This includes how many of each size and if excess stock is required on-site.
Preplanning can help manage budgets more effectively and ensure you have what you need available to you at short notice.
Other important questions to ask are, do these employees work full-time, will they need a new change of clothes every day, or can garments be laundered between shifts? These questions will give you a transparent view of what’s required and what may be a “nice to have”, which can be an unnecessary expense to your business.
It is important to remember that clothing brands fit differently, so keep to hand sizing charts and ensure your staff know how to measure themselves to guarantee that garments are the right fit.
Previous order history can provide evidence-based forecasting of quantities and usage for larger companies.
5. Branding Yourself Visible
There are many reasons for adding a company logo and branding to a uniform. Not only are your employees recognisable to your business, but they are a walking advertisement of your brand. There is also a security point of view to ensure people are who they claim to be, which is especially important when dealing with vulnerable people in schools, care homes or hospital environments.
These are just some of the points we discuss with our customers when helping them choose a fitting uniform for their teams.
At Blue Piranha, we provide a complimentary consultation service. By fully understanding a client’s requirements, we can put together a working wardrobe for each team and business that is fit for purpose and makes their staff feel great.
Contact the team today to learn more about our customisation services and start your uniform order.