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How to Dress for Remote Work – Fashion Trends for Pandemic Life

If you’re wearing pajamas while sitting at your office, you might not be dreaming – you’re likely awake and remote working in 2020. After all, if your coworkers and boss can’t see you, do you need to dress up? Wouldn’t you rather be comfortable and practical in your fashion choices for remote work? This shift in priorities during pandemic life has created some memorable fashion trends to look back on years from now.

What used to be one of the bigger tasks of the day is no longer a big task. I no longer waste time or energy on planning what I need to wear to the office: no need to bring an extra sweater for that team meeting in a freezing room… no need to plan out which days to wear which blazers or sweaters so I don’t wear the same thing two days in a row … no need to bring an extra pair of shoes to wear after I take off my clunky snow boots. Fashion has become much simpler.

I roll out of bed, put on my comfy sweater or hoodie and loose-fitting pants, comb my hair, and I’m good to go. Are other workers as casual when they work from home? How are others dressing for remote work? Let’s take a look at some fashion trends for work and fun during the pandemic.

Should there be a dress code for remote work?

As an entrepreneur, I’m used to wearing what I like, but companies are talking about having a dress code for remote work. As working from home (WFH) continues into 2021, companies are talking about implementing official, gender neutral policies for what you wear during work hours.

Wearing professional clothes while WFH helps with a mindset shift as you mentally switch from being at home to being at work. If you live with family or roommates, your clothes also signal to them that you’re in work mode.

Just how much is the mindset shift determined by what you wear? A survey found that people who dressed business professional, business casual, or smart casual felt 80% productive throughout the day. Those who wore gym clothes felt 70% productive throughout the workday. And those who rolled out of bed to work in their pajamas only felt 50% productive throughout the day.

Dressing up, even to work from home, seems to be the best option to maximize productivity. However, a case could be made for dressing more casually as well. Some workers may have to look after a child or two while working. And friends have told me how much more productive they have become by doing housework during their breaks instead of crossword puzzles in the staffroom.

The answer to what to wear seems to depend on your pandemic lifestyle. Also, it might not matter as much if your coworkers can’t see you!

How to dress for virtual meetings

Whether your meetings are scheduled or you’re on call, it’s a good idea to dress up a little for virtual meetings when working remotely. How much you dress up depends on who you’re meeting with.

When networking or meeting new clients, I may wear a blazer or a fancy sweater. When meeting with team members, I sometimes wear my good hoodie (not the faded one with some holes). In the summer, team members showed up in a t-shirt or even a tank top! The formality depends on your workplace.

During the pandemic, there is the expectation that your coworkers are seeing a more personal side of you. I’ve seen family members walk across the room in the background. Family pets have made an appearance. A friend said her coworkers are now familiar with her husband’s superhero t-shirts as he crosses the screen in their tiny, shared home office.

Many are also familiar with dressing from the waist up for meetings. If you’ve done this, then you know the drill. Business formal or business casual from the waist up. It looks impressive but remember not to get up if you’re just wearing jogging pants or PJ bottoms. If I need to get up, I slide to the side and off screen before I stand up. (Yes, I am guilty of blazer and blouse plus pajama pants.)

Something I never considered as part of my wardrobe before the pandemic is my background. Your coworkers get a peek into one part of your home during a virtual meeting. I’ve learned to accessorize my look with an assortment of virtual backgrounds that I project on my green screen. I have daytime rooms for day meetings and nighttime rooms for meetings after dark. I even have seasonal rooms. At the moment, I have a Christmas-themed living room. People have complimented me on my backgrounds.

The handy thing about having eye-popping or realistic rooms is people tend to look at your background more than you. I can dress down and my ultra modern kitchen background gets attention and makes me look more professional.

Fashion trends during the pandemic

During the pandemic, people are not really going anywhere. No more vacations, big weekend birthday parties, sports events, concerts, or dancing at night clubs. If you’re really in the mood, you could spend a half hour dressing up to go get your groceries for the week. The effort seems a bit of a waste, however.

Practical, casual clothing choices have become the fashion trend, not just at the home office when remote working, but also when you go out. If you bought a fancy outfit to wear to the next party this year, it likely spent 2020 in your closet.

Depending on your tolerance for germs, you may have a simple or complex routine for outings. When you get home, you may want to wash your clothes to ensure you’re COVID free. The regular use of hot water and detergent probably deters you from wearing expensive, handwash items. And don’t forget part of your face could be covered by a mask.

When I go out, I see people who are dressed for comfort. Baggy and loose instead of body hugging and tight. Practical and comfortable instead of expensive and fancy. I haven’t seen people in suits lately. Post pandemic, casual clothes could remain the fashion trend for work, home, and going out.

Summary

Work and home life easily merge into each other during the pandemic. Dressing for remote work could mean dressing up or being comfortable and casual. With lockdowns and restrictions affecting our social lives, fashion trends have become more relaxed and practical and this trend may continue into the new year.

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Skills Insight of the Day #6 – Teamwork and Connecting

It’s December, but this year isn’t finishing with company Christmas parties at a hotel or restaurant. Instead, companies are opting for virtual parties in which you hang out with your team but you order your own food to eat at home. I get it – connecting and team building are an important part of company culture, but do you think Zoom parties are as effective for socializing and networking?

Pre-pandemic, you could at least escape to the bathroom, walk around the hotel halls for some fresh air, or hop from table to table after dinner. With virtual meetings, however, there is no escape. Your camera is watching you. Your coworkers can see you if they are looking at your little space on the screen. You are a creature on display in your little rectangle of a cage.

Teamwork and communication are important soft skills for the workplace, but can you build those as effectively online? This year, one company wants their workers from the same department to all buy their dinner from the same chain restaurant and then expense the meal. In a sense, you are all eating together in the same restaurant. Sort of. You’re just eating at home, but at work. Sort of.

Only one person can speak at a time. Whether you are in the main room or breakout rooms, only one person speaks. You can’t start a conversation with the person next to you at the table while others are talking. You can’t wander off to get seconds or dessert or get a breath of fresh air.

Maybe you’ll get a screen shot of everyone sitting and smiling at the camera at the end of the evening. It’s not quite the same as funny group poses at the photo booth. Or photos as you stand in a group, arms over each other’s shoulders, in front of the Christmas tree.

But you can play games such as guess the Christmas song from the emojis on the screen. You can listen as everyone takes turns giving their reflections about the past year. Where would they want to go for their next vacation? What’s their favourite Christmas tradition? Funnily enough, when asked what they wanted for 2021, everyone at the Zoom party unanimously said, “An end to the pandemic.”

If this is like the company Christmas party you had this year, what did you think? Can you connect with your coworkers the same way as in person? Comment below!

Skills Insight of the Day #5 – Fashion

What do your clothes say about you? In the pre-COVID days when I worked at the office at a job, I had a supervisor who wore body hugging suits and stiletto heels. Her makeup was polished and stunning. Overall, her fashion sense gave her an aura of confidence, power, and strength.

These days, working from home has made makeup, business fashion, and coats unnecessary. At virtual meetings, you only need to look presentable from the waist up (just don’t stand up). It’s easy to roll out of bed and show up at the office in a hoodie and sweat pants, oversized cardigan, or even pajamas.

You feel relaxed and comfortable. No need to impress anyone, and you don’t even need to wear contacts. Glasses are fine!

After almost a year of remote work, people have redefined fashion trends for the at-home workplace. What do our clothes say about us though? Does comfortable still mean professional? Does baggy, loose fitting, and relaxed still give us the feeling of confidence that we had at the office?

If you’re working from home, what is your work outfit these days? Share your thoughts in the comments!

More about pandemic fashion. Read How to Dress For Remote Work.

TikTok Influencers that are Perfect for Learning About Careers

Have you ever been curious about a career and wished you had more time to learn about it? Or perhaps you have a career that you want to teach people about but you’re not sure where to start. TikTok influencers have embraced this task by creating humorous, informative, and engaging videos that are perfect for learning the inside story about careers.

The facts, the awkward moments, and the insightful moments are captured in short, bite-sized pieces for viewing. If you’re interested in learning about a career, or if you want to learn more about a career, check out these three TikTok influencers.

They’ve found the formula for giving their fans the inside scoop about their jobs. If your goal is to create TikTok videos to teach your fans about your job or career, these three accounts provide a great formula for the videos to create.

Learning About a Career as Flight Attendant from TikTok

Interested in becoming a flight attendant? Even if you aren’t, Sandra J Kwon, aka @jeenie.weenie, has some amusing anecdotes about air travel that many people can relate to. She has over 3.6 million fans on TikTok and posts a great deal of content about her past career as a flight attendant.

Her videos share a variety of topics, from creepy flight stories, to scenarios with difficult passengers, to heartwarming stories about memorable passengers. She demonstrates her talent and flexibility as an actor when she dresses up in the duo role of flight attendant and passenger to talk about visiting places such as Australia and Russia.

One of her most entertaining series is “Things you didn’t know about cabin crew” in which she reveals inside stories about life as a flight attendant. In one video, she yells, “Things you didn’t know about cabin crew, part 19!” in an airport and laughs when she’s ignored. In this series, you find out about some airport perks for staff, and answers to questions such as whether you can date or be married while you’re cabin crew.

Another ongoing series are stories about Sandra J Kwon and her mother (Sandra plays both roles). People who grew up with immigrant parents or parents who speak English as a second language (ESL) will relate to the ethnic humour about flying with an ESL parent.

Insightful one-off videos include one about the different types of flight attendants, and one about what you can do to prepare to become a member of cabin crew once COVID is finished and they start hiring again.

The depth of her experience as a flight attendant results in informative videos such as the following one about travel tips, which received 1.6 million likes.

Sandra J Kwon is one TikTok influencer who can teach you a lot about cabin crew life in her videos. You can learn a lot about a career as a flight attendant while being entertained at the same time.

@jeenie.weenie
Did you know this? 🥰 Also all countries have different compensation structures! #cabincrewlife
♬ original sound – Sandra Jeenie Kwon

Learning About a Career as an ESL Teacher from TikTok

Anyone who has taught English in a country where the primary language is not English can relate to the experiences of Mr. Patrick as @thepaperpat on TikTok. His videos about life as a teacher in a foreign country has over 889,000 followers. Although you never see his students, he brings them to life in his anecdotes. It’s a clever idea to have the young students represented as voices.

In his video scenarios as an English as a second language (ESL) teacher, he presents situations such as learning student names (we all can relate to learning new names and faces), dealing with students acting up and misbehaving, and having to scold the class.

After watching a few videos, you start to experience what the human interactions are like between teacher and student. For example, one day he must deal with students who have no energy. This happens sometimes, and it is up to the teacher to set the energy and tone, even when everyone is having a bad day.

Unique to ESL teachers (and not other teachers) is disciplining students about language use. Teachers need to enforce the English only rule, and in these videos, our TikTok influencer shows a few videos in which his Japanese students struggle with what they can and cannot say. Japanese names, for instance, don’t count as speaking Japanese. In contrast, sometimes the students are speaking English but the teacher can’t decipher what they are saying.

Also unique to ESL teachers teaching overseas is the fishbowl situation. Students are curious about the teacher because the teacher is foreign. It’s like he is always on a stage, constantly being watched.

Students will notice differences from one day to the next day. When he wears glasses for the first time instead of contacts, his students are very curious about why he has changed his appearance. This video, shown below, got 201,000 likes!

@thepaperpat
Danny be tryin me 😂 Check out @tijneyewearofficial and use the code “5free” for a discount! #Japan #teacherlife
♬ original sound – Patrick

For quick snapshots of a TikTok influencer’s portrayal of life as an ESL teacher, check out some of these videos. They are perfect for learning about a career as an ESL teacher and bringing back some memories of life as a student.

Learning About a Career as a Surgeon from TikTok

If you’re interested in life as a surgeon, this TikTok influencer has some worthy insights into the career. If you aren’t, you might find some answers to some niggling medical questions that you have. Dr. Sina Joorachi, known as @doctor.sina on TikTok, is an ENT doctor with over 569,000 followers.

He covers a range of specific topics about surgery. Have you wondered what it feels like to be under anesthesia? You’ll find a video for that. Are you curious about how to break a nose for medical purposes? Watch and you’ll find out. This TikTok surgeon also tells you about the worst emergency surgery he experienced, and the most dangerous surgery he completed.

You’re probably familiar with surgeons scrubbing in before an operation. In these videos, he takes it a step further and shows you how it’s done, and what happens if there’s an emergency and you need to take a short cut on those steps. Are you wondering about the difference between the yellow and the pink soap? He answers that too.

Ordinary tasks take on a fun and entertaining tone in the videos as well. You might be surprised to see that this surgeon puts on his PPE like how Iron Man puts on his suit. Special effects add to his superpowers of course. They also help him turn into Thor calling for his scalpel. In another video, you see him efficiently handling the task of dictating how he did a surgery. He speaks faster than most humans on this planet!

Surgeon life isn’t all work and no play. In one video, Dr. Joorachi tackles the question, “Do surgeons have a life?” when he takes you from his place of work to a vacation spot in the span of a few seconds. In another video, he’s in a kitchen, cooking up the perfect playlist to listen to during a surgery.

A popular video is the surgeon’s checklist before starting surgery. It has over 1.4 million likes and is a serious, informative look at what is needed to prepare before the operation.

This TikTok influencer’s videos teach you what a career as a surgeon is like with brief snippets of scenes from the operating room. Most of these videos are entertaining, but for some, be aware that you may be viewing some surgical scenes with internal body parts.

@doctor.sina
Keep the checklist consistent so you won’t forget things! #surgeon #operatingroom #pov #gopro #checklist #docs #learnontiktok
♬ The Office – The Hyphenate

Summary

Learning about a career can be fun and exciting. Three TikTok influencers have shared videos about what it’s like to work in their profession, as cabin crew, a teacher, and a surgeon. You can enjoy these videos for the career information, or just enjoy them as a lighthearted moment in your day.

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Skills Insight of the Day #4 – TikTok

TikTok is a video sharing social media platform that entertains and educates. Recently, I’ve been learning about career-related skills and information. For example, by watching these short, bite-sized videos, I’ve learned some answers to common health questions, discovered some insights into what it’s like to work in healthcare, and seen some unforgettable visuals about health issues.

One profession on TikTok that stands out is dentistry. A Malaysian dentist, Dr. Gao, shocked the world when he revealed the truth about how much toothpaste you actually need to brush your teeth. What the commercials tell us is not accurate, he says. (Mindblowing!) Not a question that was top of my mind, but the video got 11.7 million views and 1.7 million likes. Like they say… the truth is out there.

@doctorgao
Are you using the right amount of toothpaste? #dentist #dental #dentistry #tiktokguru #youngcreators #learnontiktok #edutok #teeth #foryou
♬ Mad at Disney – salem ilese

What career-related skills and information can you learn about on TikTok? Find out more in the next blog post!