There is a famous saying: ‘Dress to impress’. But my brother like saying: ‘It’s always better to be overdressed than underdressed.’  

I wouldn’t regard myself as a fashion icon from any angle, but my brother does have a better dressing sense than me. Just to give some context, he’s got more than 70 pairs of shoes. I mean that’s just ridiculous. Who does that? Sure if you’re David Beckham. But not when you’re a normal guy. Having said that, lately he’s not been able to maintain the same ‘well-dressed’ status for some time. He’s been slacking for his standards – Sorry bro! But nonetheless, still better dressed than me. 

You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.

Edith Head, American Costume Designer

There is no doubt that being well dressed does leave a good first impression on people. But when it comes to your tuition business, it does raise some questions: ‘How important is it really for a tuition business?’ ‘How smartly dressed do tutors need to be to teach?’ ‘Is it really that important?’

These questions take me down the memory lane when I was a tutor myself. At the time I was working for a tuition business. There were strict rules in how we had to dress – always a shirt and trousers, and nothing less. In my many years of teaching, I don’t ever recall not wearing a shirt, except there were a few instances when I didn’t wear trousers to work. I thought to myself it’s okay, until one day I was called into the owner’s office. 

As I walked in, I saw other tutors sitting there too. I had no idea what the meeting was all about, but later discovered that we had to have our annual ‘performance review’. It was a meeting to make matters official. But frankly speaking, it was nothing more than a simple tick box exercise – something that they had to do, I guess. 

So I’m sitting there in the office; and after the review is completed, the owner goes to me: “You know those Jeans you’re wearing, you’ve worn them a few times now haven’t you?” In other words, he was trying to say: ‘don’t take me for a fool, I know what you’ve been doing. It’s just I haven’t confronted you on it’. And there you have it – my first encounter with the importance of being well dressed at work. 

Not to mention, the tables turned, where I was now on the receiving end. Once, I had a tutor, who turned up wearing a massive chain around his neck with diamond earrings. For me that was a first. Never ever have I seen anyone turn up to teach carrying that image. Honestly, I’m no one to judge, but ultimately you think about how students will perceive the teacher. What will they be thinking? Will they want to learn from them? So it’s important, as you don’t want to lose your customers. I had an open and honest conversation, and from the following week they were okay with making the changes.  

When we first started our tuition business, we wanted to do things properly. Starting your business is exciting, so naturally you would want things to be ‘perfect’. But in hindsight, there is no such thing as ‘perfect’ in business. Business is simply solving problems and improving service with the changing times. 

Anyways, back to the story……

Given the well dressed person my brother was, he wanted to introduce polo tops with the company logo on it. He wanted all tutors to be dressed the same way and for them to look like a team. Even today, he doesn’t let his teachers and tutors wear trainers to work (think he’s more accepting of it now). So we went ahead and ordered these for our tutors. We decided on a white polo top, with an orange company logo. Although many years have gone by, I still have the original one saved up somewhere in my apartment. Afterall, we as business owners had to wear one too! 

We used the polo tops for a few weeks, but later the idea was scrapped. We learnt it didn’t add any value to our business, so we eventually stopped. Some tutors continued wearing it, but we didn’t enforce it going forward.

Does it add any value?

Well you have to be dressed presentably, but in my experience it doesn’t add much value to kids education. You might be thinking why? Well, the simple answer is that parents hardly see the tutors. All they care about are the results and that their kids want to attend classes. Kids feel more comfortable when they are able to connect with their teachers – that’s all that matters.   

Just look at the ‘actual’ school teachers. They’re quite ‘normally’ dressed. Over the years, the culture has changed a lot. This is understandable, as more and more people are focused on their health (so they might need to wear certain types of shoes), but more importantly multiculturalism has changed many things in our society. There is an unwritten rule as to what ‘normal’ looks like, and that’s certainly expected, but I don’t think there are any specific requirements anymore. Certainly, not that I know of any. 

I mean look at the likes of the Zuckerbergs. The man is multi-billionaire, but dresses up in a grey t-shirt, blue jeans and simple trainers. The culture is changing. It doesn’t matter, as long as you deliver results. Even in professional services, people dress up very casually, and it’s when they might visit a client that they’ll pull out their suits from the wardrobe. 

We are running a tuition business here. No one cares about how teachers dress up, so long as kids’ academics improve. I have come across tutors who dress up in a variety of styles because they come from different cultural backgrounds themselves. So naturally their styles will vary. To streamline that into one standard style for the tuition centre just doesn’t work. Do you remember we tried that with the white polo tops? Which is why we scrapped the white polo tops many many years ago. It didn’t add any value at all. 

The key question is whether parents really care about it or not. Afterall, they are paying us for a service. Well, they only care about one thing, and that is their children’s academic results. If we can help them get those results, the rest, they wouldn’t really care about. 

Conclusion

It’s not a big deal how tutors dress. You don’t need professional outfits like suits etc. If you do dress up smartly, certainly take that as a bonus. Remember – we’re not meeting with bankers to discuss millions and billions of investments, where they dress smartly to impress each other.

Ultimately, it’s all about delivering results, and if we can do that then no one cares about what tutors wear. It could be jeans, it could be t-shirts, it could be trainers. So long as they teach well and help improve children’s academic results.