The last thing you probably ever thought you would have to do was become the surrogate guardian or parent for many of your employees who obviously have no clue as to what a business is, how it is conducted, or how they should act and dress once they crawl out of bed in the morning.

Who taught these people how to dress?

Did anybody ever teach them how to dress?

Did anybody ever explain how one should conduct themselves in a place of business?

Now I'm not old-fashioned and can accept the societal changes that are impacting many of today's workers, but I cannot, and will not, tolerate inappropriate dress or behavior in the workplace.

Have you had the pleasure of conducting any interviews lately? You know there is a problem when you review the resumes that come across your desk, especially if they contain a cover letter. They can't write.

I always require a cover letter with a resume, just to see if they can put more than five words containing more than five letters in a complete sentence.

When they show up for the interview they look as if they are on their way to the ballgame at the high school field down the street. I've actually had people show up in jeans and t-shirt for their first meeting, and that becomes their last meeting. I won't interview them and would not want them working in my company if they can't even figure out how to dress for an interview and nobody in their household had the common sense to sit them down and explain how the real world operates.

Obviously influenced by today's movies, videos, and over-the-edge direct mail catalogs; we seem to be fostering an entire generation that is determined never to dress for success, or even think about it.

Dress in the workplace is a real issue for many companies today. It seems that many companies are actually afraid to say anything to their employees for fear that there may be litigation or government intervention for denying them some ill-conceived right to wear whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of the setting.

I've seen more belly buttons this year than I can count, and each year the clothes cover less anatomy and skin.

Is there a way to reverse this trend, at least when it comes to the workplace. I sure hope so.

No employer has to put up with the lack of respect shown to fellow employees when workers cross the line of decency and common sense when it comes to dress codes and acceptability in the workplace.

The more lenient you become, the more aggressive and daring they become.

I had to explain to our Human Resource Manager that "casual" day did not mean a day at the beach. There is a difference between business casual and barely casual. I even had to send the receptionist home one day due to the way she was dressed. It seems that all of our male employees were spending quite a bit of time in the lobby. When I explained the problem to the HR manager, she said nobody else was complaining. Of course they weren't, they were too busy exploring the landscape of her anatomy revealed by the skimpy attire that she picked out of the closet that morning.

The receptionist doesn't work for us anymore. Neither does the HR manager.

I'm sure you have more important things to do than develop a dress code, but the sooner you do it the better off you will be, and the less distractions and frustration you will have from your employees.

Business casual is an accepted fact in today's workplace.

If anybody ever told me that I would someday make a professional sales call on a client wearing slacks and a golf shirt I would have told them they were crazy. I couldn't imagine making a sales call when I was not in suit and tie, period.

But, the world does change, and I can change also. Even in our business-to-business work setting I will make sales calls in business casual attire. I have clients that will go out of their way to let us know that nobody in their company dresses formally anymore, including the executive management team. We will now inquire about corporate dress prior to making many sales calls.

I do have one important rule though. Any casual attire worn by any employee must have the corporate logo. It cannot be just any shirt or blouse. If we are going to dress casually, it is going to be neat, it is going to be proper, and it is going to say who we are and reflect a professional image.

This rule applies to every employee from the warehouse to the front office.

We have sales contests, and the prizes are apparel and the employees love it.

We purchase a lot of shirts that showcase the awards we win from the manufacturer's we represent.

How many of you who have received the prestigious RVDA quality service awards actually put this on company shirts to showcase to customers and remind your employees to do their jobs to the best of their ability and win it again next year.

Manufacturer awards and recognition are a great time to present all of your employees with a shirt showcasing the award.

Corporate apparel programs are available through many companies that will set up the program for you, print a company catalog, and process all the orders.

We look for creative ways to give our employees a new shirt. The employees love it, and we get to enforce our dress code policy without undue burden on the employee.

Recent giveaways included special shirts made up for a charity golf tournament that many of our sales and service people participated in. We made up shirts for all employees at the summer barbecue.

Our technical service team won a very prestigious award from one of our manufacturers and we had the company's logo and award on one side and our logo on the other side. Customers were very impressed to read of the service department's accomplishments on the shirt when the technician showed up to service their equipment. It was a great conversation piece and they were very proud to wear it.

I also find that employees will take very good care of the apparel that the company provides to them. They wear it with pride. They feel the pride and work just a little bit harder that day because they want to live up to the billing that we are broadcasting on the shirt.

We want to keep our company name in front of the customer, and if the acceptable dress code for many businesses is going to be business casual, then I want to decide just how casual, and just what I want it to say, and convey, to our prospects and customers.

Four of us showed up at a Boston Red Sox game a few weeks ago wearing the same shirt ... on purpose. Our service manager was retiring and we wanted to treat him to a ball game and a night at the world famous Fenway Park, one of the last great places to watch a real ballgame in a real ballpark in America.

The shirts were bright yellow and contained our company logo. They were neat, clean and very professional looking business casual attire. They caused heads to turn when they saw four bright yellow shirts coming down the street.

There was a method to my madness. By the time game had ended, we had collected the names of seven prospects to give to our sales team the next morning, and I'm sure many more visited our web site, whose address just happened to printed across the back in small, but readable, characters between the shoulders.

If business is changing, we must change. But we can control the changes. Take control of your dress requirements at work. Set out the rules and make sure everyone reads and understands them.

Meet the employees half way. Provide some casual attire for them and make other clothing available for them to purchase.

Use apparel as a motivator and incentive each month.

We can't change the world, but we can, and should, change some of our employees. It's part of our responsibility as management to lead by example, establish the rules of the road, and still maintain an enjoyable work environment that will foster growth and profit.