Appropriate Attire Guideline Set By Customers?
The Washington Post article by Zach Goldfarb – "SEC Employees Win Battle to Dress Casual" (2010-09-04) notes that the Securities and Exchange Commission's field employees won a "formal business attire not required in the field" battle with top officials.
The SEC requires formal business attire at its headquarters. However, under its new attire guidelines, an SEC examiner can now dress to the same standard as his or her customer, which might be more casual than formal business attire. Since undergoing an examination is threatening and scary enough in and of itself, having the examiner dressed in a way that could be interpreted as intimidating does little to put one at ease. Considering this, SEC's examiners pushed to relax their dress code when they conduct such exams (if their client has a more-relaxed dress code).
Would a similar practice work for your professional environment? Why, or why not?