How common/acceptable is facial hair in a professional/corporate setting in your country?

18 comments

1. I think that all depends, if it’s a well kept beard I think it’s perfectly fine. If it is however a mess then it just doesn’t look professional.

2. Depends in the Netherlands. If work requires you to wear a mask (surgery, chemicals, gas mask, etc), it can be banned or restricted by your employer and is generally accepted.

   Otherwise, it’s not a thing to ban facial hair.

3. Not at all a problem here in Italy,in most jobs anyway.

   We have an extremely large number of bearded or artfully shaven men in almost every kind of work I can think of.Its pretty trendy to have stubble at least…most of the younger guys I work with have it! Some have small beards,moustaches etc too.The big kind of Santa Claus beard is not as common though 😉

4. In Turkey, beards and moustaches are forbidden in the army. You have to be clean shaven. When I was growing up, beards were forbidden in the public sector as well (like for teachers for example) I don’t know how it changed over the last years. Generally most jobs have stricter dress codes than in other countries, and long/messy beards are definitely not well-seen as a professional. Not to mention that people turn everything, including beard shapes etc into political symbols.

5. I worked in London and had a beard for 8 years. Never a problem. I’ve had a beard since I could grow one around 20; I wouldn’t give much thought to someone who thought it was “unprofessional”.

6. >I know in England for instance there’s a lot less tolerance of beards in white collar jobs

   What are you talking about? No one cares if you have a beard in the UK. There are people in every level of job who have beards.

7. Perfectly fine as long as it is well kept. So no wild bush with hairs standing to all sides or just a bunch of shags

8. I work in a pharmacy, so I think my job can be classified as quite professional (but not corporate though). I have a short beard and nobody gives a damn. It’s obvious I have it even though I’m wearing a mask because obviously it doesn’t fit. Nobody has ever complained.

   I personally don’t care if someone has facial hair or not. I mean, I do, because I’m attracted to it so it’s always nice to have the opportunity to look at it (especially at mustaches). But I don’t care about it if we’re talking about the “professional vs. unprofessional” issue. If you’re clean and you have clean clothes on, that’s plenty. I focus on the fact if you’re skilled and knowledgeable enough to do your job right. If you can’t, you’re obviously unprofessional, even though you might look flawless. I don’t go to work to look good, smell good and appear “professional”. At the end of the day what matters is that I’m good enough to do my job.

   Honestly, you could replace “facial hair” in your question with literally anything, tattoos, piercings, etc. I don’t have to like the way you look, but it’s not a dealbreaker. It’s important that you feel comfortable doing your job and you’re good enough at it to do it right. If you are, that’s great and whoever turns you down just because of the way you look, it’s their loss.

9. I don’t think many jobs have problems with facial hair, tbh

10. Somewhat common and generally accepted as long as the beard is kept neat and clean.

11. In Spain🇪🇸 , as for the rest of Europe, we have trends for facial hair, same than for women’s haircuts.

    Moustaches were very usual during franquism, specially short/not bushy/carefully tended to. Because the dictator had one.

    80s, moustaches, beards, clean shaven, as you had the influence of the 70s hippies/leftists entering politics. Your facial hair was related to you political views, more or less.

    90s, back to clean shaven mostly,

    Then in these past 20y, when short beards or stubble have been in fashion, they’ve entered the workplace via the youngers. Same for moustaches, rarer in corporate but present in more hype/trendy places.

    Right now my workplace has most higher management clean shaven except for some short beards/5 days stubbles. Along the rest, some moustaches, short beards, many clean shaven.

    I think nowadays men style as they find makes them more attractive, and nobody bats an eye.

12. The tolerance to beards are just high in all jobs here. i don’t think i’ve ever had a job where someone doesnt have a majestic beard. Also i get jealous because how uneven my beard grows.

13. Seems to be totally fine here. Roughly half the guys I work with have some kind of facial hair, ranging from entry-level tech writers to engineers to executives. Same in my previous job; our contract lead (my boss’ boss’ boss) was always somewhere between scraggly five o’clock shadow and the beginnings of what you might call a proper beard.

14. No one gives a flying fuck.

    Had to keep my beard short in the Bundeswehr, but after that no one cared. And it is almost impossible to impose such rules on employees, no matter if it’s about men’s beards or women’s hair.

    The only thing your boss can order you is to cover your hair or beard with a net or mask for hygiene or safety reasons.

15. I don’t think anyone cares.

    If you have like dyed it blue, then maybe you’ll have to argue about it if you’re a lawyer or a news reporter, but unless you’re in constant highlight and approval by all possible audiences is important part of your job performance, it’s no-one else’s business.

16. In the UK most white collar jobs are at ease with beards now, the culture shifted very rapidly in just recent years for most jobs.

    At the very top of the private and public sector its still a debate and still leans heavily conservative on this, but attitudes have begun to change slowly which is something I never thought I would see.

17. Honestly no one cares about do you have it or not. It’s just important that you keep it clean, no one wants to see plazma keks crumbs falling out of your beard

18. In England now it is fine, it is a rather outdated idea to be clean shaven. Offices are dropping suits, ties and so on except maybe in very professional places like solicitors offices or banks. Even then a smart one is likely to be fine. It would be messy stubble they won’t like.