Workers Feel Dress-Code Stress Seven Times a Month, Survey Finds

Hybrid workers in the U.S. report feeling stressed or anxious about what to wear to the office roughly seven times a month, according to a 2025 survey of 1,000 hybrid workers by International Workplace Group (IWG). Almost half of respondents — 46% — said the anxiety hits at least weekly, and 14% said it strikes daily.

The numbers expose an unintended consequence of the return-to-office push: companies spent years dragging employees back to their desks, but never told them what to put on. The confusion now stretches from the newest hires to the executive suite.

Grant Alexander, founder of the executive image and styling consultancy Grant Alexander Studio, describes a recent conversation with a longtime client, the COO of a large private company. Several of his vice presidents had asked him what they should wear to an event.

"He looked at me, and he's like, 'When was the last time a VP had to ask the COO what they should be wearing for something?'" Alexander told Fast Company. "A lot of the executives I work with have never talked to their employees about this."

How did the wardrobe gap open?

The pandemic did the structural damage. In the first weeks of lockdown, people still wore office attire. As the weeks stretched on, smart trousers gave way to sweatpants, and shirts were pushed aside for T-shirts and hoodies.

"Now there's a gap between what people believe they should be wearing at the office, and what their wardrobe actually has become," Alexander said. "So they're just like, 'I don't know what I should be wearing right now.'"

Samantha Harman, a former newspaper editor turned personal stylist, told Fast Company that knowing what to wear has always been complicated — but return-to-office mandates have made it harder, because the expectations remain ambiguous. One of her clients, a manager, described his office as split between people who looked like they had rolled out of bed and others so polished they could have been going to the opera. When Harman asked whether he had raised it with his team, he replied: "Are you kidding? I don't even know what the rules or the guidelines are."

The trick that got workers through the remote era no longer works, either. "It's all very well 'top dressing,' or Zoom dressing—where you are presenting yourself in a certain way on screen, but on the bottom you've got your pajamas on," Harman said. "But you can't do that face-to-face."

The vague language companies use compounds the mental load. Harman said she recently overheard two men debating whether an invitation specifying "smart casual" meant they needed a tie. "You're giving your employees more work to do," she said.

Why does the burden fall hardest on Gen Z?

The youngest workers have the least to go on. In the IWG survey, 94% of Gen Z respondents said they wanted guidance on what to wear to work, compared with 84% of millennials, 70% of Gen X and 61% of baby boomers.

"Gen Z entering the workforce have no idea what to wear and nobody's talking about it," Alexander said. "So they're just like, 'OK, I have joggers. I'm just going to wear them.' And it usually takes them getting yelled at and something happening and somebody correcting them."

Francesca O'Connor, cofounder of the workplace culture consultancy HappyHQ, said leaders need to spell out what appropriate dress means for their specific organization — and to distinguish an ordinary office day from occasions that require stepping up, such as a client pitch.

"That doesn't mean everyone needs to wear a suit," O'Connor told Fast Company. "It means having the judgment to understand your audience and what the situation calls for."

Her advice to managers is blunt: "If there's an expectation that people dress differently for certain occasions, explain it. Don't leave them guessing, particularly when they're starting out in their careers."

Can clarity actually fix this?

The fix is cheap. Alexander argues that pushing people back to the office without addressing how they present themselves is shortsighted, and that a simple email or Slack update would do most of the work.

"You can say, 'Hey, a few people have asked us lately about what we should wear.' Nobody's going to question it," he said. "Executives can make it easier on the entire organization by just talking about it."

Harman adds that clearer expectations carry a payoff beyond avoiding awkward conversations: confidence. "If you are wearing something that makes you feel really good, you will behave in a different way than if you're wearing something that makes you feel a bit like a potato," she said. Her recommended method is to ask employees what they love to wear and what makes them feel good, even through informal workshops or forums.

"People often tell me, 'this is not ever something that we ever speak about at work, and yet it affects me every single day—because every single day, the one thing that I have to do is get dressed,'" Harman said.

There is one catch, and it runs straight to the top: executives can only send that clarifying email if they themselves know what the protocol should be. On the evidence of the VP asking the COO what to wear, many do not.