Designing a Uniform That Distinguishes Management Staff

In industries like retail and fast food catering, it's common for employees to wear a corporate uniform. It makes them recognisable parts of your branding while simultaneously ensuring they're dressed suitably for work every day.

The downside to this is that everyone looks much the same, so it's not always easy for customers to distinguish between management and other members of staff. It can also have an impact on the authority of managers, so you may encourage them to wear a suit.

Instead of having management staff wear their own smart clothing instead of the uniform, try some of these tips to design an altered version that marks people out as supervisors or managers.

Consider different tops

Depending on what your normal staff uniform is, you can easily switch the smartness up a step for the management uniform.

If your staff wear a T-shirt, add a collar to the managers' uniform by supplying polo shirts instead; if staff normally wear a polo shirt, give managers a button-up shirt. And if shirts are the standard uniform top, design a tie that matches your branding colours and add that to the management uniform.

Using this technique is a really simple way to mark out those with more authority, and customers instinctively know the difference when they see it.

Add a jacket

If all of your staff wear shirts and ties, it may not seem as straightforward to design a management uniform. However, the simple addition of a jacket can be enough to differentiate between the different levels of employee.

Choose a jacket in a colour and fabric that match your uniform trousers or skirts, if you have them, so it works as a suit. This immediately looks a notch higher on the ladder of formality, so it creates an entirely different appearance for managers.

Change the colours

The colours of your uniform are an integral part of your brand's image, and businesses normally choose them to match their logo and other branding. Because of that, you won't want to change them completely, but you can design a uniform with slight differences.

In general, darker colours look more authoritative, so you could have a dark main colour for the management uniform with subtle touches of your brand colours. Alternatively, depending on the design of your ordinary uniform, switching the colours can be really effective.

Experiment, note down some ideas and decide what achieves the desired look without ditching those all-important brand colours.