It may be the age of casual Fridays and tie-less suits, but it seems the majority of workers still prefer dealing with those wearing formal clothing, according to a new poll.

In a survey, one in five said they preferred the casual approach with 12 percent stating that they had no preference. The research by officebroker.com found that nearly three quarters (68 percent) of workers felt ‘more confident of a positive outcome’ when dealing with smartly dressed business people.

Workers were said to feel ‘more respected’ when dealing with others in formal attire, with many stating they believed the service they would receive would be of a ‘higher quality’ than by somebody in a t-shirt and jeans.However, the importance of formality was found to have its boundaries with 85 percent of those polled stating that a tie wasn’t necessary when trying to project a professional image. Of those workers polled 60 percent said their business still operated a traditional, formal dress code. Twenty eight per cent said they were allowed to wear what they wanted all the time, with 12 percent going formal when meeting external people. Unsurprisingly formal attire was
most demanded in traditional professional services industries such as finance and law, with a more relaxed dress code allowed in creative industries and amongst firms which had little direct external interaction.