The Debate: Is it okay to wear shorts to the office?

Wednesday 25 June 2025 6:00 am
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Tuesday 24 June 2025 5:51 pm

Within the midst of a British heatwave, it’s time to ask the massive query: is it permissible to put on shorts to the workplace? Our writers battle it out on this week’s Debate

YES: Consolation is important to focus and productiveness

With UK workplace employees feeling the warmth (actually) as temperatures soar to the excessive 20s, workplace employees are going through a costume code dilemma: how do you keep cool whereas additionally retaining skilled? One reply could be to put on shorts – however Brightmine information exhibits that 39 per cent of employers don’t permit shorts, rising to 61 per cent within the finance sector. 

Whereas skilled costume codes stay necessary in lots of contexts, it’s price asking whether or not present insurance policies and practices are retaining tempo with the realities of recent working life. 

When temperatures rise, consolation turns into important, and there’s robust proof that being comfy helps focus and productiveness. Good, tailor-made shorts could be simply as acceptable as different business-casual choices, particularly in settings the place formal client-facing roles aren’t the norm. 

There’s additionally a wider inclusion level to think about. The flexibleness provided by relaxed costume codes can profit neurodivergent staff, corresponding to these with autism, in a major approach. For some, sure materials or clothes types could cause misery, notably within the warmth. 

And for a lot of, clothes is a approach of expressing identification. Permitting extra alternative (inside cause) helps create a office tradition the place people really feel seen and revered. That type of belief and adaptability will foster higher belonging – which feeds into higher engagement. 

In the end, permitting weather-appropriate clothes is about giving individuals the pliability to carry out at their greatest. As work tradition continues to evolve, rethinking costume codes is a small however significant step in the direction of a extra inclusive, sensible and productive office. 

Bar Huberman is content material supervisor at Brightmine 

NO: Shorts declare indifference, inattention, overfamiliarity

Sartorial conventions exist and so they matter. Even for those who profess indifference to them, your indifference is in itself a stance, since you are setting apart conference, breaking guidelines and making a press release to others about your self.

Don’t let that assertion be “I like shorts”. Males shouldn’t be sporting shorts within the workplace until they’re serving within the British Indian Military c. 1928 (which applies to vanishingly few), or until – no, there isn’t one other “until”. After all in case your office has any type of costume code requiring even semi-formal apparel, then shorts don’t even enter the dialog; for those who suppose a swimsuit can embody shorts fairly than trousers, there’s no salvation.

Even within the realm of the informal office, shorts are a step too far. By no means thoughts that they might require much more consideration to leg grooming than most males will ever undertake. They reveal an excessive amount of, whether or not ivory-white hairless shins, matted whorls of fur or bony knees.

I do know what you’re pondering. “Girls can naked their legs in an expert setting!” you protest. True, however the higher reality is, as Joe Jackson sang, is that this: it’s completely different for women.

Garments carry out a primary operate of regulating our temperature and, since Eve was beguiled by the serpent and made an unwise dietary alternative, hiding our nakedness. However that’s solely a fraction of what they do: they promote, announce and assert our identities, and there’s no-one of whom that’s not true. In an expert setting, shorts say nothing good. They declare indifference, inattention, overfamiliarity.

The final homme sérieux to put on shorts was Subject Marshal Montgomery. Might he, and so they, relaxation in peace.

Eliot Wilson is a Metropolis AM columnist and contributing editor at Defence On The Brink

THE VERDICT: Garments make the person

Within the more and more liberal world of the trendy office, there’s maybe one taboo that seems destined to outlast the remainder: sporting shorts within the workplace. However as British summers warmth up, and in-office air-con stays a distant dream for a lot of, might it’s time to let the knees of the nice British workforce run free?

Whereas Ms Huberman argues that clothes is a robust approach of expressing identification, it’s for this actual cause that Mr Wilson urges the other: the slovenliness of being a shorts-wearer is the precise kind of identification that ought to be saved underneath wraps. And he has a degree – for those who’re sporting shorts as a result of you may’t be bothered, that can be communicated. 

That being stated, there are some necessary ifs and buts, and, as with virtually all issues of enterprise, actually, it’s a matter of styling. In the event you can actually pull off an identical shorts and jacket set (and for those who can, you’ll know) please, by all means go for it. However for the remainder of us – that’s the 99.5 per cent of males by the way in which – can we get critical please? Get these legs away and, for those who’re actually too sizzling, could we propose linen.