Daily Times

Goldman Sachs pinned a poll to its Twitter account asking what its employees should wear to work now that the investment bank has relaxed its dress code.

The winning choice? “Hoodie & sneakers” at 38 percent. But “suit” came in a solid second place at 28 percent. Least popular was “midtown uniform,” a look so ubiquitous that it has its own Instagram account .

The tongue-in-cheek poll pointed to a question gripping workplaces in an era when business casual – whatever that means – has become so accepted that even the most buttoned-up symbol of Wall Street power has surrendered to it. The 150-year-old company sent an internal memo this week announcing the time was right “to move to firmwide flexible dress code” while urging its 36,000 employees to “exercise good judgment in this regard.”

“It can be pretty scary because what is acceptable and what is appropriate to wear to work is not an easy question to answer. A suit? That’s easy,” said Chris Bossola, CEO of the Need Supply Co., a clothing and lifestyle store based in Richmond, Va.

The drift toward relaxed workplaces began 1990s when companies started introducing “casual Fridays,” said Robert Burke, CEO of Robert Burke Associates, a retail and fashion consulting firm. It rapidly became entrenched with the rise of West Coast tech giants like Amazon and Facebook and their young moguls.

“Goldman was one of the last holdouts of a more formal dress code,” Burke said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s famous go-to outfit – jeans and a gray T-shirt – projects the confidence of the founder of a company that upended how people interact and companies advertise. It was when he wore a blue suit to a congressional hearing last year that observers said he looked diminished as lawmakers grilled him over Facebook’s privacy policies.

The episode was a vivid reminder that jeans won’t do in every setting. But Wall Street firms have had to get with the program as they compete with tech giants for young workers comfortable with ditching the suit and tie in most professional settings.

Goldman Sachs first relaxed its dress code for its technology and digital division employees in 2017. Expanding the policy to the rest of its workforce, Goldman cited its “one firm philosophy and the changing nature of workplaces.” The change comes three years after the country’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, adopted its own flexible dress policy.

The dress code is symbolic of a deeper cultural transformation at financial firms, which are trying to project themselves as innovation hubs where individuality and autonomy is emphasized. Goldman, which says one-quarter of its employees work in engineering-related roles, has in-house incubator to allow employees to develop ideas. J.P. Morgan Chase has plans to open a financial technology campus in California’s Bay Area.

The tone has been set from the top. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, who likes to emphasize his side gig as a DJ, has been known to show up tieless at formal events, as have the chief executives of JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup.