My Gen Y employee refuses to wear a tie!

Dear Aunty B,

Now call me old-fashioned but I still believe the majority of men should wear a tie in corporate Australia.

My problem is I run a software business in Melbourne but my Sydney people don’t like to wear ties. In fact, one of my Gen Y sales guys flatly refuses to wear a tie. But the other day I came up on a Friday and found him in some weird type of cheesecloth shirt that would have looked better tied around a big wheel of Brie in the South of France.

I have asked him several times to put on a tie when he goes out to sell but he says he represents a software company which is in the e-space and that is the image he needs to portray. I get his point yet I still think he needs to wear a tie.

Am I old-fashioned?
NSW

Dear Am I old-fashioned,

You are not old-fashioned, just a bit spineless. Don’t ask your sales rep to wear a tie. Tell him to wear a tie. Explain that while he might think he is in e-space, he’s actually not. He in fact needs to shift his mind set. What matters is to whom he is selling. If he is selling cheese in a deli, then the customer is going to find the tie over the top and alienating. A good-looking bloke in a cheese cloth shirt would fit in nicely here.

But selling to corporate Australia? You wear their uniform so they feel comfortable with you, so they recognise you, so they can talk to you in their language and feel you can solve their problems and make them look good for their customers and their bosses and their staff.

There is another reason: I assume you are a small business. When you are selling, the customer needs to feel you have authority and will deliver what is promised – and a tie can do that for a man.

But while a tie can lend authority it can also be a sign of subservience. It signals respect and I suspect that could be why some Gen Ys hate ties.

So take your tie hating hippie and tell him it is not about him and his perception of the market. It is about his customers and your company wants to be represented.

This sounds like a problem with his ego. If he is not happy wearing the tie, then he is not happy selling to corporate Australia. By the way, my local deli is looking for staff!

One final word about the cheesecloth – when this horrid vintage trend is over, personally I am going to celebrate with a bottle of Moët. The other day I saw a nice young woman in our office shuffling around in a waist to floor corduroy brown sack that I swore I gave to an op shop in 1985!

Good luck,
Aunty B

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