Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
The episode where Graham and Ashkahn discuss the nuances and rational behind an appropriate float center uniform and additional attire.
Show Resources
FTS Products – Template Employee Handbook
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “dress code?”
Ashkahn: Good, well-formulated question.
Graham: It’s succinct. I like it. For us, “no.” period.
Ashkahn: Period, possibly exclamation point!
Graham: I guess that’s not even really true. We have the most minimal dress code that you possibly could … Wear something and, preferably, it doesn’t have holes and isn’t dirty.
Ashkahn: Okay, there’s a few parts to this dress code situation, I would say.
Graham: Yup, there’s the question mark, there’s the dress, and there’s the code.
Ashkahn: Alright, let’s work on the dress for now. There’s dress codes from your perspective of running a business and the customer service experience. Then I’d also say there’s some kind of HR liability stuff with dress codes that comes into play. Which one do you wanna talk about first?
Graham: There’s only two? I thought you were gonna say more perspectives.
Ashkahn: No, that’s it. What else?
Graham: There’s the actual convenience of cleaning up float rooms from the employee standpoint of convenience dress codes, I guess. Dress suggestions, I might suggest.
Let’s talk about the legal side since that’s really boring.
Ashkahn: This varies from place to place. You should really look at your own local rules about this, but there are some places that have rules for closed-toed shoes, for example. It’s mostly about shoes, I think. Do you need to wear shoes, or can you go barefoot? There’s a lot of people who work in float centers who go around barefoot. That might be something that you need to look into in your area.
I know for Oregon, I don’t think it matters that much. We looked into it, but there’s other states that have a lot stricter, basically, liability issues. If someone’s not wearing shoes and something happens to them, especially ’cause you’re dealing with chemicals, if you’re using hydrogen peroxide or something like that, or even things like FilterFresh that are made of different acidic materials, that’s not stuff that you necessarily wanna drop on your feet.
I think a lot of float centers are probably taking glass out of their area already in terms of cups and stuff that customers drink, concerns about broken glass, about dropping things that you’re cleaning with or heavy other equipment during deep cleans or something. If maybe you’re doing filter changes or stuff like that, there might be some concern in there for what sort of shoes you’re wearing.
Graham: The same thing can actually go for things like long sleeves and stuff like that, too, something to look into on the safety side.
Ashkahn: In terms of the customer service side, that one is the most up to your own personal taste, I think.
Graham: You mean the side where it’s you don’t want to offend customers, you want to set a dress code so that you have some kind of consistency set up?
Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s some pragmatics to it, right? Hey, if everyone’s wearing a t-shirt with your logo on it, then a customer knows who works there, and they know who to go up to and ask questions to. We don’t do that. Our people who work in our shop wear whatever they want, but for the most part it’s pretty easy to tell who works there and who doesn’t.
Graham: Yeah, sometimes the people standing behind the desk are the staff. That’s our policy. No, it has a lot to do with your business philosophy and your business personality, your brand overall, whether or not you want this kind of polished, uniformed look to people. In our case, again, where we’re going for this children room chic design, and our policies tend to be as lackadaisical as we can manage them to be. We really like people making Float On their own.
For us, again, as long as people are showing up, and they don’t smell terrible and their clothes aren’t totally ripped or they look like they came out of a wolverine fight or something like that, then for us it’s good. We actually prefer people to dress more like how they want to dress, because we feel like they’ll be more comfortable on the job, and it creates that more friendly, casual environment that we like.
On the flip side, of course, yeah, again, you have the uniformity and professionalism in some areas, and for your business that might be what you want. All of that is very personal, I guess. There’s no right or wrong decision for that, necessarily.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: Or wrong.
The last one, which I actually do have some tactical tips or advice on would be what’s useful dress for actually cleaning up or working the float center. Right?
Ashkahn: Yeah, and that comes … Mostly, people figure this out pretty fast who work for you. Someone makes a mistake once wearing shoes they like into the float center and then realizes they’re never doing that again. It’s the color of it a lot. You slowly fade out wearing any black clothes as you go in to work your shift. We have a lot of employees that like to wear little aprons.
Graham: Yeah, it’s interesting even despite not having a dress code, some things have become really popular. Aprons, for instance, have become really popular among our staff. It’s almost unanimous now, I think, that people wear those when they’re on shift, which is really cool. They have little pockets that you can store things like external thermometers in or extra earplugs or something, nice for carrying stuff around, little rags, and also stops your clothes from getting salty when you are running around and cleaning. If you need to go straight into customer service, you’re either wearing an apron, which looks a little better dirty, or you can even take it off really quick and be in full clean clothes, which is nice.
Ashkahn: Rubber shoes.
Graham: That’s exactly what I was gonna say.
Ashkahn: Actually, this one maybe does go into the HR stuff, too, as well, but you want shoes that have some slip resistance to them, ’cause you’re moving fast, and you’re cleaning salty floor and stuff like that. There’s, of course, a lot of slip resistance built into your construction, but still the people who are most likely to slip are the ones who are darting from room to room every single transition, trying to clean up salt water. There’s something to that, having good grip on your shoes.
Graham: Yup, good grip and washable. If you can throw your shoes under the sink, and you’re not worried about them, that is absolutely the type of shoe that you want for a float tank center.
Ashkahn: Yeah, for sure. Someone out there, some young enterprising soul is gonna make float shoes at some point, I think … shoes to wear at your float center that look cool but are entirely made of rubber.
Graham: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a good market. If you do them, let us know. We’ll be your first customers, absolutely. Our address is …
There’s some practical ones. Again, apron, good shoes. Same thing, if you’re having people wear long sleeve shirts, and that’s part of your dress code, reconsider that, too. It gets really hot inside the float tank rooms. Even dress shirts that have long sleeves, you’ll be sweating through those so fast if you’re running around during the transitions, especially in these high humidity float rooms. Something that you can wear, either shorts or short sleeve shirts or something that’s more breathable, also, tends to be also good.
Ashkahn: I’ll end this by saying that we have had a dress code before at Float On, full disclosure. There was a period of time where Jake, Marty, and I, we’d be working on Fridays in the shop together. We had a strict policy of formal Fridays. Every Friday in the shop, we’d actually wear button-up t-shirts and ties, and we quickly realized that we had to also have tie clips, or our ties would dip into the float tanks as we went around cleaning. That was a good little run that we had there. It was incredibly hot to wear that in our float center, but that was the dress code that we had at some point.
Graham: I’m actually kinda sad that our staff doesn’t do formal Fridays anymore.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we should make them. We should force …
Graham: Make it mandatory.
Ashkahn: That’s right, mandatory formal Fridays.
Graham: Formal Fridays every day.
Ashkahn: Except one day we’ll give them a break from it, you know?
Graham: So there you have it, our opinions on dress codes. I might even call those facts on dress codes, actually, less than opinions. As always, if you have your own questions that you want us to rant about, send them into floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Common Float Tank Issues – DSP 295
Graham and Ashkahn give the skinny on the foibles one my encounter when purchasing a float tank. These aren’t specific to any one manufacturer, but they are useful things to look out for when shopping around for a tank.
What is Float On’s North Star Metric? – DSP 294
Graham and Ashkahn talk about the guiding principles and metrics that dictate how they run Float On and what they measure for success. While they don’t have any float center secrets, they do provide some useful advice in how to look at numbers, when to pay attention to them, and perhaps more importantly, when to ignore them.
What Can you Say About Float Centers Closing? – DSP 293
It happens every once in a while that a center you knew closes down and it can seem like a dark omen for the rest of the industry. The reality is that these are individual circumstances that are brought about not because of a major trend as much as just life events coming up.
Graham and Ashkahn share their take on other float centers closing and what they know about it and how frequently they think it’s occurring.
How to Build a Green Float Center – DSP 292
Graham and Ashkahn talk about the options available for sustainable options when building a float center, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Unfortunately, the materials necessary to make a float room saltproof and waterproof tend to be very unfriendly for the environment.
The guys break down the specific options available and what to consider when adding green technology to your own center.
How We Financed Float On – DSP 291
Graham and Ashkahn are asked about how they financed Float On.
As the guys explain how they started, they go along slight detours to talk about all the mistakes they made along the way and how they’re unsure that Float On could even start today like it did back in 2010. They then go on to explain the pros and cons of the extreme bootstrapping they did to make Float On happen.
Latest Blog Posts
The Heart of Floating – Guest Post by Kevin McCulloch
“When we commit to The Heart of Floating, we form relationships and communities. We share experiences, we connect, we learn, we teach. We care.”
In this guest post, Kevin McCulloch, owner of Float St. Louis and organizer of the Rise: Float Community Gathering, explores the heart of floating and it’s power and potential to connect, heal, and grow individuals, relationships, and communities.
The Most Ambitious Float On Project Yet
We have a new endeavor that we’ve been working on in private for awhile now, and we think that it’s going to make a big splash in our salty little industry. After many years of testing behind closed doors, we’re finally ready to take the plunge and release our secret project to you, the floatation community.
You might want to sit down for this one….
The Start-a-Center Giveaway Returns!
Everyone knows that, when it comes to gifts, it’s much more fun to give than to receive. With this year’s Start-a-Center Giveaway, however, I’m not so sure anymore. With over $13,000 in Float Tank Solutions products going to one lucky duck (plus $4,000 worth of goodies from other float industry homies), we humbly suggest that we may have finally tipped the scales in favor of the recipient.
If you’re Charlie, this Giveaway is the Golden Ticket, which I guess makes the Construction Package a Wonka bar and the Ninja Fans are the Fizzy Lifting Drink. So, what do you have to do for a chance at all the Everlasting Gobstoppers?
It’s been three years since our last Giveaway, and we thought that it was long overdue for another one. So, what’s the dealio? The Giveaway is a chance to give a big ol’ boost to a deserving Float-Center-To-Be. This time around, we’re taking things to a whole new level, with over three times the value of products and services being given away. To you. For free.
Dear Everyone: Please reconsider building your own tanks
Look, we get it. Really. Float tanks are expensive – especially for what can seem, from the outside, like a glorified bathtub with spa parts attached. It doesn’t take long to go from, “Why is this so expensive?” to “I’ll bet I could save money by making my own tank!” After you start mulling it over, you get excited. You could be offering something no one else does right now… because it’d be your own creation! How hard can it possibly be?
As experts in only thinking about half of the consequences of our actions (at best), we’d like to say, “Incredibly hard, actually!”
