CentreO Blog

Hong Kong is a pretty liberal working environment when it comes to dress code and “casual” seems to be an accepted norm for most city offices.

But what is the difference between business casual, everyday casual, holiday causal or just plain inappropriate.

Pants

Things like blue jeans, sweatpants, exercise pants, Bermuda shorts, short shorts, bib overalls and any form of body-fitting pants are considered inappropriate.

On the other hand, Dockers and other cotton/synthetic/wool pants would be a smart choice for office wear.

Skirts and Dresses

Dress and skirt length should be at a length which you can sit comfortably in public. Short, tight skirts that ride halfway up the thigh are inappropriate for work. So are sun dresses, beach dresses and spaghetti0strap dresses.

Shirts, Tops, Blouses, and Jackets

Tops like classic shirts, sweaters, golf shirts and turtlenecks are acceptable in the workplace. So are suit jackets and modestly-coloured and styles sports jackets. Inappropriate clothing includes: tank tops, shirts with offensive words, slogans, terms, ,logos, pictures or cartoons, tops with bare shoulders, sweatshirts and T-shirts unless you wear then under a blouse.

Shoes and Footwear

Conservative should would be be your best bet: loafers, clogs, flats, dress heals or classic athletic shoes. You should stay away from flip-flops, open sandals, slippers and other informal footwear.

 

 

With the hours we work these days, often staying up late and putting in Saturdays and Sundays, it is inevitable that our personal and professional lives tend to overlap.

Personally, I often find it hard to balance out the overlapping, especially when it comes to phone calls.

The general rule I try to follow is simple: no personal calls from 9 to 5, unless it is an emergency. Of course, my friends and relatives often have a different idea of what constitutes an emergency. For my girlfriends it may be the annual sale at Sephora and for my mom her problem opening an email attachment.

Another issue here is, how to handle getting a personal call at work? I tend to act embarrassed and either run out of the room whispering or mute my cell and call back when nobody is around.

However, some of my colleagues seemed to be very OK about taking personal calls at the desk and even more OK with loudly discussing their personal issues. This way I got to learn a lot about a wide array of things about my co-workers: from the kids’ grades to their position on high heels versus flats.

So the question is: in today’s working world are personal calls an inevitable and welcome part of professional life, a cause for embarrassment or a complete taboo?

My instinctive guess is that we cannot cross out our personal relationships and ignore our friends and family. After all, they are what matters in the end. But we should aim for a balance. The starting point would be trying to schedule all our calls during a lunch break. Or, the next tome we have a few leisure minutes at work – use them to call a loved one (instead of surfing the net for celebrity gossip updates)

What do you think? Drop me a line at sales@cantreo.hk.

Recent trends show that more and more companies choose to block social media in the workplace. The general idea behind making the social media fruit forbidden is that it negatively affects productivity. But is it really so?

The truth is, blocking social media is not an easy task. Yes, you can do that using various software programmes. But for every blocking programme, four more pop up that help get around the block. This is just how it works. Cell phones, laptops and tablets also make it easier to get around social media restrictions. And actually, employees end up spending more time figuring out how to surpass the imposed limitations, than they actually would spend checking the updates in their social media channels.

Secondly, productivity.  It is not a measure of time, as most people would think, but rather a measure of output. Simply speaking, if Tom is unproductive because he keeps watching funny videos on YouTube, there is very little chance he will be become a workaholic when the media is blocked. Probably, he will just find another way to entertain himself.

One more thing about productivity . Think about how much time your employees spend checking  work emails at home, answering work-related Skype messages or late international calls? Is it really fair then to deny them any forms of personal communication they may miss out on at work?

So where is the golden middle?

First, we have to admit that we live in the world on online networking and social media are here to stay. So instead of fighting innovation, perhaps we should learn to incorporate into our lives, turning it into a valuable business tool rather than a mindless time waster.

 

 

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