In today’s world, looks matter a lot in many situations. People always want to look their best because it makes them feel good. Good looks can boost self-confidence, self-esteem and personality which are important traits needed to run a successful public relations campaign. People have different ways of making themselves look good but, when it comes to grooming and appearance in the office, less is usually more.
You may have found an ideal location for your business and the last thing you would want is a misunderstanding or a miscommunication with the community around there. The relationship that you will have to the community will depend on their attitude, impressions and opinions towards you and your business. The state of your public relations is usually a reflection of everything that your business does: the appearance of your office, the handling of visitors, the dressing of the employee’s, appearance and quality of your content together with knowledge and competence of the staff among many others.
To build strong community relations, you need to understand the community needs, use proper methods to meet those needs and ensure quality performance. Do the appearance and grooming codes for your employees offend other people? Are they sensitive to the values and habits of the community? When it comes to grooming and appearance, the following mistakes can be disastrous for your public relations specialists:
Dressing inappropriately for the workplace
What will your superiors, clients and coworkers be wearing? This will help you avoid dressing in clothing like sweatshirts, shorts, athletic shoes, T-shirts bearing slogans, overalls, sleeveless tops, jean jackets and so on.
Putting on image –killing clothing
If you do not clean and launder your clothes often, then you run a risk of wearing wrinkled, stained and foul-smelling clothes. This is something that can put off any visitor or client that you interact with. For a public relations staff, this will be quite devastating to the business image. For men’s business shirts and cotton pants, the best thing is for them to be taken for a laundry service for a professional look and those clothes that are a bit wrinkled perhaps need spray-on wrinkle reducers.
Exposed tattoos and piercings
Unless you are working in the entertainment, art or music industry, tattoos and piercings can trigger negative first impressions with the perception that one can be a criminal or a rebellious person. This is because gang members use tattoo imprints that usually have violent messages. Therefore, it is best that tattoos and piercings are kept hidden at workplace especially for men.
Bad breath and body odor
People are now involved in workouts during work hours than never before and if those workouts are not followed by quick showers, coworkers and clients may have to put up with the bad body odor. This is also the same when they have to tolerate halitosis from employees who fail to clean their mouths and teeth regularly. Apart from foul body odors, wearing too much perfume can also be offensive to majority of clients and coworkers.
