Why I Dress Up for (Remote) Work

By Mitchell Stephenson

The Stepping Stone, March 2024

After the beginning of the pandemic, I was searching for the right balance of business and casual. I wanted to be both effective and comfortable while working from home. Sometime in late March 2020, I showed up to an impromptu video call with my company’s chief actuary. I was wearing a tie-dye shirt and pajamas. Even though she managed it well and made me feel comfortable, I felt embarrassed because of my attire.

Soon after that, I started wearing a tie and vest every day. I did this even when I had no scheduled video calls. I started dressing that way not just because I felt underdressed in my impromptu call with the chief actuary. It was because I needed a method to disconnect my work from my home life. I needed that because for the first time ever, they both occurred in the same place

Like a lot of people, I experienced anxiety throughout the pandemic. This was especially true during the first few months. While I valued having the extra hour and a half back every day, I missed my commute. I certainly did not mind saving on gas and car expenses. What I missed was the opportunity my commute gave me to disconnect work from my home life. Driving to work provided me with time to mentally prepare for the day. Driving home provided me time to decompress. During my commute home, I would think about what did and did not go well during the day. I also spent the time preparing my best self for my family. Now that we were all working from home, I missed the separation that my commute created between my work and home life.

Without that separation, I found myself wandering back to my work computer after hours frequently. I did this even when I had completed everything I wanted to during the day. I checked emails on my work phone late into the evening. It was becoming a habit.

I started putting on dress shirts and slacks because I needed a way to feel separation between work and my home life. After work, I changed into my tie-dye shirt and pajamas. That helped me to disconnect. The desire to check work emails on my phone waned. The urge to go back to my home office just because I needed something to do decreased. I replaced the separation that the commute provided me with a dress-up, dress-down routine.

This worked so well that I added a tie and a vest. I still (mostly) work from home and dress up for work every day like that. I wear slacks and shoes, a dress shirt, with a tie and a vest. That one strategy—dressing up while working and dressing down while relaxing—helped me achieve a better work / life balance than ever before.

There are a few important lessons I learned from this experience of searching for work / life balance while working from home:

Checking work emails on my phone during non-work hours was creating anxiety. I realized this after speaking with a colleague who made this observation. I was experiencing anxiety because when I checked my work emails on my phone after hours, I could not address them in a quality way. Sometimes a work email requires action, follow-up, or a live conversation. After hours, I was unable to take the requisite actions. The lesson I learned was to only check emails when I intend to perform the necessary follow-up activity. This decreased the anxiety I experienced when checking them after hours.

I remember being on Main Street, U.S.A. at Disney World with my family before the pandemic. It was the Friday of a full week out of the office. I decided to check my work emails on my phone. I became agitated with one email. It distracted me the entire morning as we walked around the Magic Kingdom. I remember thinking how bad an idea it was to have checked my emails. Now, I make a habit of not looking at emails—whether after hours, on weekends, or especially on vacation—unless I intend to address the required follow-ups. This habit change has made a significant difference in reducing work-related stress during non-working hours.

It was not that hard to get comfortable being the only person dressed up on camera. Upon seeing me on video for the first time, people often make a comment or query about why I dress up. When I offer the explanation—that I need separation between work and personal life, and dressing up gives me the opportunity to have that—everyone says they understand. People eventually do not give it a second thought when they see me on video in a tie and vest.

I recall an early evening one-on-one with my boss recently. My daughter had softball practice and I am one of the coaches. Instead of my tie and vest, I was wearing a baseball hat and tee shirt. The first thing he said to me upon seeing my attire was, “what the heck?” He said this because he usually sees me dressed up. It is part of my personal brand now.

Commuting, although time-consuming and expensive, can serve a valuable purpose. I do not miss driving to work, fighting traffic, or sitting in my car for 45 minutes each way each day. I do miss the decompress time. There have been occasions after a rough day at work when I have gone directly downstairs from my home office and greeted my family in a not-so-great mood. I learned over time to take five minutes for myself, especially after a rough day, before greeting them downstairs. That is true even with the change of attire that enables an organic separation between work and personal life.

The (only) other thing I miss about my commute is the learning and personal development I was getting from audio books and podcasts. Typically, I would use the time to learn about things in my development plan. This includes topics related to leadership, relationships, team building, and communication. Not having to spend time in the car is incredibly valuable to me. I can work more, or even better, spend more time with my family. This includes eating breakfast and dinner with them every day. I do find, though, that I need to create other ways to get in my learning and development. Typically, I will spend an hour a week at a specific time dedicated to learning. That is necessary now that I do not have the daily commute.

Bringing it all together. In the end, I, like a high number of employees in the workforce, value the opportunity to work from home. I also value the opportunity to spend time in the office with my colleagues when we have a specific reason to be there. Although an increasing number of companies expect employees to come into the office with a recurring frequency, for many employees, they do not have a daily commute. Work has changed in this way. My way of finding separation between my work and personal life is to dress up for work. What is yours?

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.

Mitchell Stephenson, FSA, MAAA, is head of model governance at Fannie Mae. He can be reached at mbstep684@gmail.com or via LinkedIn.