Does Dress Code In The Workplace Matter?

A few years ago I was working with one of the world's largest grocery retailers around helping them understand what the future of work is going to look like. They asked me to come into their offices and so I did. One of the things this company wanted to do was become more transparent, collaborative, and less hierarchical so naturally I was excited about working with them. I visited their offices and saw hundreds of people dressed up in suits and ties sitting in cubicles, the silence of hundreds of people sitting in an area was beyond creepy, you could literally hear a pin drop. It felt like that eery silence in horror movies right before the killer comes out and surprises a victim. I asked them about this and was told the CEO said, "it was like this when I got here and will be like this when I leave," that's it! The fascinating thing was that these were not employees in any customer facing roles and you can visibly see employees uncomfortable in their own skin.