Stephanie Brasley Posts: 6 6/21/2023	Stephanie Brasley Posts: 6 Hi, I have a question about colored hair. We have an incoming intern who has dyed her hair purple. Although we see people at the host business with colored hair, I wasn't sure since we are trying to teach best practices that I should ask that hair should be a natural color for the period they are participating in the program. Just looking for some thoughts on this from other sites. Thank you.
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Forrest Richard Posts: 1 9/20/2023	Forrest Richard Posts: 1 Hmm. This is a bit of a gray area. It may be different in different parts of the world. I would follow the policy at your host business. We go through our hospitals online orientation and employee handbook/expectations each year. The hospital that our program is hosted at has no policy regarding colored hair. So we follow those policies ourselves. We have an intern right now with blue hair. We've even had a career coach with dyed blue hair. Of course these standards may change based on where you live but in our city/state tattoos and colored hair are no longer considered unprofessional. It is certainly a good idea to have a conversation about how these expectations may change in different jobs. Working in a kitchen vs. working in an office is going to have very different appearance standards. So we impress upon our interns the importance learning and following the expectations based on your work environment.
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Meaghan Jones Posts: 20 9/21/2023	Meaghan Jones Posts: 20 We have talked to students about dress code using a social thinking model and relating it to host business policy. If it is not a policy to have natural hair colour, I don't feel I can ask an intern to change their hair. As Forrest mentioned above, we let the workplace standards set the tone. What I can do is talk about how our choices impact how others think and feel about us. Some people may respond negatively to purple hair even if it is within policy, and I try to make sure interns are aware of those possibilities. When it is interview time at end of year we review the conversation again. I've had interns opt for natural hair at that point since they don't want interviewers to make assumptions based on appearance.
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