When you go about ordering embroidered workwear in any given business area, you have the option of going premium or cutting corners to save a few quid here and there. Generally speaking, it’s probably safe to say that most businesses have more pressing financial priorities than the uniforms and garments they hand out to the workforce – it’s not as if running a business of any kind is cheap. As such, it’s common for the quality of such garments and uniforms to be somewhat compromised on, which although seemingly superficial on the surface is actually something that can prove detrimental.
To invest in the best quality garments and production thereof is to make a valuable investment in the business and its all-important workforce. How can the quality of the garments themselves make any real difference? Quite a few reasons, of which the following represent just a small sample:
1 – Staff Satisfaction
So, right off the bat comes the rather important consideration that is staff satisfaction. If you were to go about sourcing the cheapest, most uninspiring uniforms that look as if they were thrown together for nothing, what does this tell your staff in terms of how well you regard them? Exactly, it tells them no such thing at all and instead outs you as the type that would rather let them walk around looking like garbage than shell out a few extra pennies. Needless to say, this breeds neither motivation nor great employee retention rates – is it really worth the risk therefore?
2 – Staff Comfort
Still on the subject of staff, there’s really nothing worse for motivation, output and general satisfaction in the workplace than uniforms that pinch, itch, chafe, rub or are in any way uncomfortable to wear. Quite simply the more you cheap out when it comes to the uniforms you buy, the higher the chance that they will be nigh-on unwearable when it comes to the poor staff you expect to don the things. Comfortable workers are happy workers and therefore better workers in general – it really isn’t rocket science!
3 – Brand Image
Next on the list comes the way in which the uniforms you choose and the quality thereof will say a great deal about your brand as a whole and how you do business. While some will always look at uniforms as little more than a necessity to hide the modesty of the workforce, those in the know will tell you that every last garment is a front-line representation of your brand and a massively powerful marketing tool. Every customer that comes into contact with a person wearing your brand’s garments will be given a deep and important insight into the way you do business and the kind of brand you are. Do you come across professional and pristine, or are you more of a half-assed and completely uninspiring brand that’s not really worth bothering with? It’s true – your uniforms will tell them all this and more.
4 – Fraying and Fading
Chances are that when those shiny new uniforms arrive, you’ll be more than happy with the way they look and thus will wonder what on Earth all the fuss was about – why bother paying more? Here’s a question to which the answer will come soon enough…pretty much as soon as the garments have been put through the wash a couple of times max. This is when you’ll start to notice all manner of fading and fraying the likes of which will make your brand-new uniforms and garments look as if they’d be out and about in the wild for decades. And when your customers lay eyes on the uniforms you clearly haven’t bothered to renew since 1968…or at least that’s how it looks…it’s unlikely that your brand and business will go up their respective estimation.
5 – Long-Term Costs
Last but not least, one of the other clearly beneficial arguments for investing in quality uniforms and work garments in the first place is that if you don’t, it’s not going to be long before you have to go out and replace them…over and over again. It might seem like you’re making a good saving in the first instance when you buy them, but over time you’ll end up spending so much more on replacing them that it’d have been way better in a financial and logistical sense to buy the better examples in the first place. Of course, the other option is to allow your workforce to go about its duties with half-destroyed bits of work clobber hanging off them, but your brand’s image will take a potentially fatal knock as a result.
