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The increasing prevalence of unconventional appearance attributes (e.g. tattoos, piercings, unnatural hair color, alternative clothing) is a concern among employers as these appearance attributes are often viewed negatively. Because much of the existing employee appearance research has been conducted in the USA, the purpose of this paper is to examine employee beliefs regarding the impact of unconventional employee appearance on customer perceptions of service quality in Mexico and Turkey. The authors also examine the impact of gender, age, and position level.

The sample consisted of 295 white collar employees in various service industries in Turkey and Mexico. Respondents reported how they thought eight employee appearance factors (tattoos, facial piercings, unconventional hair color, unconventional hair styles, sweat pants, clothing with rips or tears, clothing that bears midriffs, belly-buttons, or cleavage, and uniforms) would affect customer perceptions of service quality.

Employees in both Mexico and Turkey indicated that uniforms would have a positive impact on customer perceptions of service quality and all seven unconventional employee appearance attributes would have a negative impact. Significant differences for country, gender, age, and position level were also found.

Future research including a more diverse group of countries and cultures is needed. Future research should also attempt to control for differences in type of organization, organizational culture, and job type.

Alternative fashion and appearance styles may be trendy but there are risks in how these might be perceived by customers and by colleagues at work.

This study examines employee beliefs regarding the impact of a variety of unconventional employee appearance attributes on customers’ perceptions of service quality in Mexico and Turkey.

The article aims to provide a discussion of societal norms concerning “attractiveness,” the existence of appearance discrimination in employment, the presence of “preferring the pretty”, and then the authors examine important civil rights laws that relate to such forms of discrimination. Finally, the authors apply ethical theories to determine whether such discrimination can be seen as moral or immoral.

It is a legal paper which covers all the laws related to discrimination based on look. Court cases and Americans laws related to this concept are reviewed and critically discussed.

The paper finds that appearance‐based discrimination is not illegal in the USA so long as it does not violate civil rights laws.

This research is limited to Federal and State laws in the USA and may not be relevant in other countries as the local laws might vary.

Managers and employees can protect themselves in the workplace from illegal discriminatory practices.

Employees know their rights and enhance their understanding of laws related to appearance, attractiveness, and why companies look to hire those who are considered “handsome”, “pretty” and “beautiful”.

This is an original and comprehensive paper by the authors.

Appearance is part of a person's non-verbal communication, and looks are often associated with the perceived ‘attractiveness’ of individuals for hiring practices in the workplace. As such, physical attractiveness can be a ‘prized possession’ when it comes to leaving a positive impression on managers who are interviewing candidates. In the twenty-first century environment, our society seems to be more obsessed with physical appearance than ever before because society has conditioned us to associate beauty with other favourable characteristics. Of course, such appearance norms, regarding attractiveness, ‘good looks’ and beauty are linked to years of socialisation in culture, cultural norms and materialistic personality standards.

In a business context, managers and employers often make hiring decisions based on the appearance and attractiveness of the job applicants since outward appearance seems to play a significant role in which candidates eventually might get the job. Physically attractive job applicants and candidates tend to benefit from the unearned privilege, which often comes at a cost to others who are equally qualified. Preferring employees who are deemed to be attractive, and consequently discriminating against those who are perceived as unattractive, can present legal and ethical challenges for employers and managers. In this chapter, we provide a discussion and reflection of appearance-based hiring practices in the United States with relevant legal, ethical and practical implications for employers, human resources professionals and managers. We focus on ‘lookism’ or appearance discrimination, which is discrimination in favour of people who are physically attractive. As such, we examine federal, state and local laws regarding appearance discrimination in the American workplace. We also offer sustainable policy recommendations for employers, HR professionals and managers on how they can be fair to all candidates in order to hire, promote and retain the most qualified professionals in their departments and organisations.

The formal and informal regulation of employees' appearance is a routine component of organizational life. In our research, we analyze appearance-related employment discrimination lawsuits. These cases involve organizational dress codes, grooming policies, and employers' attempts to regulate employees' appearance with regard to weight, hairstyles, religious attire, body art, and more. Men and women who refuse to comply with appearance norms face termination of their employment, promotion denials, lower wages, transfers, not being hired in the first place, and other workplace sanctions. Our focus on court deliberations and decisions allows us to explore not only the gendered nature of appearance policies themselves but also how the legal system supports, reinforces, codifies, or, conversely, deems unacceptable such policies. Our data demonstrate that organizations and courts are likely to support appearance norms that reinforce traditional ideas about femininity and masculinity.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship that exists, if any, between employee appearance and organizational identification in the context of apparel retail stores.

Salespeople from a variety of apparel retail stores were interviewed using a semi‐structured technique.

Salespeople's level of identification was related to the congruency they perceived to exist between their identity and store's identity. Those who identified with their employment organization felt uncomfortable when the apparel items they wore to work were inconsistent with the store's identity. Additionally, those who identified with their employment organization did not feel uncomfortable wearing apparel items from that store to engage in activities outside of work.

The study contributes to the body of literature on employee‐organization identification by providing evidence of a relationship between appearance and identification. Future research is needed to examine the relationship with a random sample of employees from additional employment contexts.

Participants indicated that their level of identification was positively related to their level of job satisfaction, which in turn was negatively related to their intention to leave. Apparel retail store managers may be able to use appearance‐related factors to select employment candidates who will most likely experience identification with the apparel retail store. Furthermore, potential apparel retail salespeople should be encouraged to consider image congruency when applying for employment.

In this study, a first effort was made to investigate the previously hypothesized relationship between employee appearance and employee‐organization identification.

Aesthetic labour explains how employees are required to look and sound the part in many contemporary workplaces. That such corporeality affects workers' employment prospects, including career progression, is now well documented in research. As such, it can result in employment discrimination based on physical features, more commonly known as ‘lookism’. However, very few jurisdictions proscribe lookism, and little is known about the efficacy of those that do. Based on archival research, this chapter examines the procedures and operation of physical features inclusion in an Equal Opportunity Act in one jurisdiction that does proscribe ‘lookism – the state of Victoria in Australia. As the first analysis of such laws, the chapter provides an important opportunity to assess the efficacy of legal attempts to address employment discrimination based on employee appearance. In so doing, it draws out lessons about the legal challenge to lookism.

Although customers may interact with visibly tattooed employees, there has been very little research investigating customer perceptions of visibly tattooed workers. This paper aims to fill some of the gaps.

The independent variables of employee appearance (tattooed versus non‐tattooed) and service outcome (below, equal to, or above expectations) were presented in textual scenario to a convenience sample of university students aged 18‐24. Subjects responded to questions regarding the appropriateness of employee appearance, confidence in the ability of the service provider, satisfaction with the service, and likeliness to recommend the service provider.

The youthful sample considered visible tattoos on a tax service provider to be very inappropriate, and they held significantly less confidence in the ability of the tattooed versus non‐tattooed employee. Satisfaction with the service (across three levels of outcome) was significantly lower in the tattooed employee scenario (as compared to the non‐tattooed employee), and subjects were significantly less likely to recommend the tattooed service provider, even when service outcome was favorable.

The effect of visible tattoos was only investigated for one service occupation; other types of services may be more (or less) affected.

Human resource managers have generally been unwilling to hire visibly tattooed job applicants, though empirical evidence to support this posture has been lacking. The present study, using a sample expected to be accepting of tattoos, provides evidence that visible tattoos are unfavorably perceived and have negative consequences for the business, at least for the service business tested in the scenario.

This study aims to develop a measurement scale for employee aesthetic labor (AL) in hospitality from the perspectives of frontline employees of international tourist hotels and airlines.

The authors utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods to develop the AL scale. Participants were frontline employees of international tourist hotels and airlines in Taiwan. The authors’ analysis incorporated both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to examine the results.

A four-factor, 21-item hospitality AL scale with satisfactory validity and reliability was created. The four AL factors are appropriate voice and response, pleasant appearance, corporate aesthetic image delivery and polite and elegant demeanor.

The developed AL scale can serve as a useful tool for the hospitality industry in terms of employee recruitment and training to align with the corporation's aesthetic image and reduce the potential burden of AL on employees.

Based on dramaturgical theory, this study focuses on the AL practices that are performed during service encounters with customers. It is potentially the first AL scale to be constructed using rigorous scale development procedures.