Halloween Costumes In The Workplace: Yay or Nay?

Quite frankly 2020 has been far too serious. If there was ever a year to take advantage of your employer allowing or even encouraging you to dress up for Halloween, this is it! 

Nationwide, our parent company Townsquare Media LOVES Halloween and loves to show the costumes the DJs in all of our cities put together via their Facebook page. You know that even outside of Halloween, I LOVE to cosplay so I'm all about it! Unfortunately, the Boise stations have a history of being the Halloween version of The Grinch. For the past three years, I've been one of like three people who actually wear a costume to work.

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This year, that all changes! We've hired a bunch of strong women who are equally excited about dressing up this year, so we're doing it every day for the rest of the week. I started today as Daisy Johnson from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tomorrow, I'm doing Peggy Carter from Captain America: The First Avenger. Friday, I finally get to wear the Black Widow costume that I've been waiting to break out since March when they canceled Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle due to COVID-19.

Wondering if you should participate in your office's costume contest? I say you should because life is always more fun in costume and actual studies show that you should, too!

According to a O.C. Tanner survey, about 45% of offices let and encourage their employees to dress up for Halloween. A deeper look into the survey responses showed that employees who dressed up were prouder to tell people where they worked and were more engaged in contributing to the success of their company.

If you do choose to dress up, US News offers these tips for keeping those costumes work place appropriate!

Make Sure the Costume Makes Sense for What You Do

If you work in a field like that where you may have to deliver bad news, you probably don't want to dress up as say Elsa or Anna from Frozen. That could make an already uncomfortable moment even more awkward or disrespectful.

You have to think function as well. I LOVE my Yoshi costume that I used for our Trunk-Or-Treat a few years ago, but the gloves only have four fingers. With how much I need to type or use a mouse during the workday, it's not the most functional at work costume.

It's Ok to Go Low Key

If you're trying to think of something last minute, there's nothing wrong with doing a little "closet cosplay" where you build an entire costume around something that you already have. For example, my Captain Marvel suit is a two person job to get in and out of. I still wanted to wear Carol Danvers to work last year, so I grabbed a khaki hat, white shirt and leather jacket out of my closet and rocked the look she did after arriving on Earth.

PopSugar has a pretty great list of closet cosplay ideas for the workplace that includes everything from Baby Yoda or a Scare Crow to Kim Possible or Taylor Swift. You can see those ideas HERE!

Keep it Work Appropriate

Work's not the place to be showing off your assets. If you think for a second that your costume is showing too much skin, it probably is...throw another layer on underneath it. Be considerate of your co-workers too. This is really not the year where you want to be toeing the line over whether or not something could be considered culturally in appropriate.

Don't Shame Those Who Don't Dress Up

This year, I'm absolutely thrilled to have some of the new DJs from our sister stations get equally amped for Halloween as I am but...not all of our co-workers are into Halloween as much as we are and I'm not going to harp on them for it. They may have a good reason for not dressing up and I'm cool with that. Be nice to your less festive co-workers.