During my tenure as a Human Resource manager, I was hit daily with conundrums and issues. An issue that usually plagues my profession during this time of year is whether or not to celebrate Halloween at work and allow employees to wear costumes. Believe it or not, this may sound like a trivial thing, but there are people who work who take All Hallow’s Eve very seriously.
Depending on the office environment, I see no wrong in employes wearing costumes as long as it doesn’t interfere with work and doesn’t offend any customers or employees. When I worked in HR in a call center, we allowed employees to dress up at work because they were on the phone and didn’t see any of our clients or contacts. When I performed the same job in a sales environment where customers were in and out of the facility, we celebrated Halloween with decorations and food, but did not let the employees dress up.
Simply put, if the costumes and celebration interfere with work production or causes chaos, it may not be a good idea to allow employees to dress up for Halloween.
It surprised me at how many adults really took Halloween (and dressing up) seriously. In one office where we outlawed costumes, a frustrated employee actually circulated a petition around the office collecting signatures to show management how pissed off everyone was. It was then that I realized that this is indeed a serious holiday for some—either that or people want an excuse to dress up and be kids at work, even if it’s just one day.
Work is work—in most cases, it’s a professional environment that calls for professional employees, even when everyone else is having “fun”.
What are your thoughts?
Photo credit: eHow
I vote to wear! I agree that it is important to remember you’re at work and like you said as long as it doesn’t interfere with work and doesn’t offend employees or customers I can see no harm in a little fun in the office. What a great way to keep employee moral up and smiling. My wife’s company actually required it. They gave them a costume allowance and supplied lunch. The pictures were gr8 and the bonding that took place did nothing but strengthen their working relationships.
Doug Belleville
Wow, your wife sounds like she has a fun job! Lucky her. Thanks for commenting, Doug 🙂
That’s the only place I used to wear my costume back in the day and I was HOT when they banned it! It was so fun and there was 1 lady that did full out production stage makeup every year AND decorated her entire cube (think real looking witch with real looking witches lair). My favorite work costume ever was when I went to a meeting and a project manager was wearing bed slippers, a rob, a house dress, hair in curlers, had on a face mask and had a huge cup of fake coffee with something stupid written on it. Can you tell I’m all for it?
I say no. Fun me wants to see it happen but professional me knows that where I work… well, it won’t go off well and will just cause more mayhem than needed. I look forward to working somewhere where I can dress up though