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When Arturo Polichuk got his first college internship in September 2020, he was introduced to corporate life via virtual onboarding and fully remote work, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. I never got to go to the office, other than to pick up my computer and then to drop it, Polichuk said of his nine-month business planning internship at Nike. While Gen Zers like Polichuk might have gained many of the same experiences as other entry-level employees, return-to-office mandates are proving that Gen Z missed out on one big lesson: navigating office attire. Gen Z, the generation born after 1996, may comprise a quarter of the global workforce by 2025. Flooded with obscure dress codes like business casual, which Vogue says is dead, or TikTok office attire trends like office siren, which promote sexier iterations of office wear, Gen Z is entering the workforce confused. To make navigating office attire easier, Fast Company asked Gen Z professionals in various industries what they wear to the office, and how they figured it out. Are dress codes still a thing? Yes and no. Kyndal Midkiff, a recent law school graduate and associate attorney at a Florida law firm, explained that at work she opts for business casualthink closed-toed shoes, modest skirts, slacks, and button-up shirts with no tie. In court, Midkiff is required to follow guidelines, including modest clothing and wearing a dress jacket. Midkiff says she learned about dress codes at law school. At school we had seminars about what’s appropriate, what’s not. That was helpful for figuring out what the attire is, she says. For others, like Polichuk and Max Baevsky, who both work in consulting, no guidelines were explicitly given. Instead, they were encouraged to follow business casual while in the office, and to wear suits while holding client meetings. Nick Arreguy, who works in tech sales in New York City, says a dress code is included in his company’s employee handbook. The policy is not specific, stating that dress code is casual, and that employees are expected to use their judgment in choice of clothing. With uncertainty, he decided to dress overly formal the first day, as did Polichuk and Baevsky. It’s like an overcompensation,” Arreguy says. “I remember showing up on my first day working in tech, wearing dress pants and a collared shirt buttoned all the way up. And I realized that that’s not the reality anymore, he adds, referencing a shift toward more relaxed attire following the pandemic. The reality is, however, that there is a uniform and there is a standard to which people dress. It’s not based on a level of formality. It’s based on a level of identifying with a given group, Arreguy says. In practice, the young professionals learned what to wear not from written guidelines, but by mirroring what those around them wore, slowly building up their go-to attire. What does Gen Z wear to work? Finding a uniform, as Arreguy puts it, focuses on finding wardrobe staples that fit into the particular workplace culture. For instance, there’s the infamous finance bro vest, which is popular among men in the financial industry. Baevsky says that while more senior analysts tend to wear more formal attire like a full suit, younger consultants err on the side of comfort, with a particular popular style. That sneaky Lululemon pant. While Lululemon ABC pants look like regular slacks, they come in various fabric options including cotton blends and sweat-wicking synthetic blends, and in various styles like relaxed or skinny. Think of them as the meeting point between “gym comfort” and a 9-to-5. Baesvky adds: You sneak in the comfort while also giving the illusion of formality. I think I’ve definitely seen that with younger consultants. Polichuk is an avid user of the Lululemon slacks, relying on them during work trips. The first thing that I pack are my work pants from Lululemon, he says. Midkiff is a believer in the capsule wardrobe, owning similar styles of pants and shirts in various colors to make dressing easier. I actually just bought the same pair of pants in four different colors, she says. Once you find something good, you better buy it in every color before it’s gone. Additionally, all professionals said they try to find garments that can be used inside and outside of work. Arreguy shares that he regularly wears Wrangler pants and a button-up shirt. While at work, he keeps the sleeves down and tucks in the shirt, but in his free time, he rolls up the sleeves for a more relaxed look. Retaining self-expression in the workplace While there is an intention to blend into the workforce, Gen Z also values self-expression. McKinsey Quarterly says this young generation places a greater value than other generations on setting themselves apart as unique individuals. Because of the nature of how long we were in remote work, there’s almost this romanticization of office wear, where people have this glamorized ideal of what it is, Arreguy says. But there’s a lot more infusing of your own style into what you’re wearing at work. Whether it be through jewelry and accessories, makeup and nails, or simply opting for bolder colors, young professionals are not leaving individuality out of the equation. Arreguy brings in Western flair to his attire by adding boots, an ode to his upbringing in Odessa, Texas. I joke with my friends that, you know, the farther from Texas you get, the more Texas you become, he says. Polichuk has observed that his younger peers use shoes to make their outfits unique. They try to bring different sneakers every time,” he says. “It’s part of their brand and part of who they are, and I think that’s what [distinguishes] themwithout losing the formal part of the consulting business. Midkiff opts for silhouettes she wears outside of work, saying, I really like a high-waisted trouser pant. I’ve always been a bell-bottom girl, even with my jeans. I love the flair. So I try to stick to those because, one, they’re comfortable, and two, I like the way they look. Baevsky plays around with color and proportions, building out his funky wool sweater collection, which he wears at work and in daily life. I also like to experiment with pants sometimes, like a wider pant or a funky plaid pant, and balance it off with something maybe mor muted, he says. The playfulness is also inspiring older generations, notes Gregory Patterson, celebrity hairstylist and styling expert for Sally Beauty. He has been helping his 16-year-old niece to apply for jobs. While he’s been at Sally Beauty, the brand has worked toward destigmatizing colored hair in the workforce. There are magical micro moments where you can express yourself, whether it’s a little glitter eye, or you put a couple brooches on to express yourself. It’s for you, Patterson says. I would suggest that Gen Z push the pedal to the floor. You all are rewriting the playbook. The playbook ended with COVID, and we have a new opportunity to define beauty and to create culture.
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E-Commerce
What if the key to being a better manager isnt found in a new productivity hack, a different feedback framework, or a time management appbut in understanding the three-pound organ inside your head that runs the show: your brain? Most leadership advice focuses on what you should do. Neuroscience helps explain why some things workand why others fail, despite your best intentions. When you manage in ways that are aligned with how the brain naturally operates, you unlock better decision-making, motivation, creativity, and connection. Here are five ways neuroscience can help you manage smarter. 1. Multitasking Is a Myth: Prioritization is Your Brains Superpower The brains prefrontal cortex handles focus, planning, and decision-making. But its also highly energy-demanding and sensitive to overload. When you spring last-minute requests on your team, surprise them with new deadlines, or pile on urgent tasks, youre setting their brains up to fail. Cognitive overload impairs performance. Each unexpected demand consumes energy needed for prioritizing, problem-solving, and creative thinking. When managers protect their people from chaotic, reactive workflows, they preserve their teams brainpower. This also builds psychological safety and trust. Try this: Push back on unnecessary urgency from above. Communicate early and clearly about changes. Create space for people to do their best work, not just keep up. 2. Creativity Needs Space (and Structure) Leaders often say they want innovation, but fail to create the conditions that allow it. The brain’s creative engineparticularly the default mode networkthrives when were relaxed, slightly daydreaming, and free from judgment. Yet most work environments reward hyperproductivity and constant urgency. Creativity requires a balance of exploration and exploitation. Neuroscience tells us that the best ideas often come when were mentally alert and engaged, but not overwhelmed; often when we are focused, interested, and under just the right amount of pressure. Constant pressure to be brilliant now can actually inhibit insight. Try this: Build “white space” into your teams calendar. Walking meetings, unscheduled thinking time, or even mindfulness minutes. Counterintuitively, making time for your people to actively rest may be your easiest to implement, but most impactful, innovation strategy. 3. Coaching Unlocks Neuroplasticity (and Performance) If your job is to get the best from your people, you need to stop telling and start coaching. Great managers ask the kinds of questions that rewire their teams thinking. Thats not a metaphor; its neuroscience. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to change. When people reflect, reframe, or develop insight, theyre literally rewiring their neural pathways. Effective coaching conversations tap into this, activating networks for learning, motivation, and problem-solving. And coaching at the identity level (helping people explore not just what they do but who they are) creates deep, lasting change. Try this: Next time someone brings you a problem, dont solve it. Ask: What have you already tried? or What would great look like here? When you practice this, youre building your colleagues brain. 4. Motivation Lives in the Brains Reward System Motivation isn’t magic, and it’s not about free pizza or ping-pong tables. Its about how well leaders understand the brain’s reward circuits. Dopamine, the chemical of motivation, spikes when people feel progress, connection, or purpose. In many workplace environments, overuse of rankings, performance comparisons, or conditional bonuses can reduce intrinsic motivation over time. When these tools create pressure or fear of failure, they risk disengagement rather than drive. Try this: Recognize effort, not just outcomes. Connect tasks to meaningful goals. Give your team autonomy in how they reach targets. These all activate the reward networks and sustain engagement over time. 5. A High-Performing Neural Environment Isnt Soft. Its Smart One of the most misunderstood drivers of high performance is psychological safety. This isnt about being niceits about creating the neural conditions for people to think clearly, speak up, and take risks. When people feel unsafe (even subtly), the brain activates the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex has to work harder to emotionally regulate. That means less creativity, lower collaboration, and poorer decision-making. Managers who create cultures of trust and fairness help teams stay in a reward stateand unlock their best thinking. Try this: Model curiosity. Fail fast. Admit mistakes. Ask more questions. Your vulnerability is a shortcut to their clarity. Final Thought: Manage Like a Brain-Savvy Human Understanding how the brain works isn’t just interesting trivia: It’s the blueprint for managing with clarity, creativity, and compassion.By making small shifts in how you focus, coach, motivate, and create safety, you build better brainsyour own, and your teams. And when your brain works better, everything else follows.
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E-Commerce
Apples annual Worldwide Developers Conference begins this Monday, June 9. Although the five-day event has historically been aimed at developers, Apples consumer fans generally cant wait to tune in to the keynote address that kicks off the event. Thats when Apple offers the world the first preview of its upcoming software launchesthe operating systems that will power its devices when they are released to the public as free downloads in the fall. This year, Apples software changes are likely to be more transformative than theyve been in over a decade, radically reshaping the look of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac OSes. But just what will Apple reveal at WWDC25? Heres whatand what notto expect. Rebranded operating systems In late May, Bloomberg revealed that Apple will be rebranding its numbering scheme for all of its operating systems. They will no longer be numbered sequentially (for example, iOS 16, iOS 17, iOS 18). Instead, they will be numbered by year. For example, the new iOS Apple will introduce on Monday at WWDC25 will no longer be called iOS 19, and instead will be known as iOS 26. The 26 stands for the year 2026. Though Apple is debuting the new OS in 2025, it will remain the latest OS through fall 2026, and the 26 moniker signifies that. That means instead seeing iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16, tvOS 19, watchOS 12, and visionOS 3, expect Apple to debut iOS 16, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26, and visionOS 26. Unified visual design Apple is also creating a unified visual look for all its operating systems. Currently, iOS and iPadOS are the only two Apple operating systems that look somewhat similarmacOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS have distinct designs for their UI elements, such as windows and pop-up menus. However, the 26 version of the operating systems will establish a universal design across all of them. Fast Company has previously detailed what the design might look like: transparent UI elements that let the forms and colors of background content bleed through like light through a glass window, floating toolbars, reflective and shimmering lighting effects, rounder icons, glassy keyboards, and more. The new OSes are said to take heavy inspiration from the current visionOS, which powers the Apple Vision Pro. iOS 26 Apple will likely use iOS 26 in its WWDC25 keynote to showcase the radical design changes coming to all its operating systems before going into detail on other changes coming to its OS’es. But theres not much known about what we can expect other than a few improvements, which include a dedicated gaming app, new accessibility features, and the addition of Stage Manager for iPhone, which will allow users to display iPhone apps on a monitor connected to the iPhone via its USB port. There will also likely be some Apple Intelligence improvements, but more on that below. iPadOS 26 The iPads new operating system will receive the same new visual redesign iOS 26 and Apples other OSes are getting. It will also receive the same accessibility upgrades and new gaming app that iOS 26 is getting. But Bloomberg reports that iPadOS could actually get more Mac-like this year. While the iPads hardware is nearly universally praised, users frequently criticize its software, which is little different than iOS, an operating system designed for a smartphone. However, users tend to think of their tablets as being closer to computers than phonesand this year, Apple is reportedly making iPadOS more like desktop software, rather than mobile. Bloomberg says that the iPadOS 26 upgrade will focus on productivity, multitasking, and app window managementwith an eye on the device operating more like a Mac. macOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26, and watchOS 26 It not clear what new features Apple will reveal in the new operating systems for Mac, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and Apple Watch. But all of them are likely to adopt the new solarium-like visual design of iOS 26. And there’s a possibility that tvOS 26, visionOS 26, and watchOS 26 may also bring Apple IntelligenceApples artificial intelligence platformto the Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Watch for the first time. Yet, for the Apple Watch, Bloomberg reports the device may rely on offloading the actual processing of Apple Intelligence requests to a connected iPhone since the Apple Watchs hardware lacks the processing power to run Apple Intelligence on-device. Apple Intelligence Last years event, WWDC24, focused heavily on Apple Intelligence. Yet, since the AI platforms rollout in October, Apples foray into artificial intelligence has been met with indifference from most consumers. Apple also faced criticism for delaying previously announced Apple Intelligence changes to Siri until later this yearor even into 2026. For that reason, Apple isnt expected to announce many new Apple Intelligence features. It won’t want to disappoint people if they again need to be delayed. However, there are reports that Apple will give users a few new Apple intelligence upgrades, including AI battery management on the iPhone and the option to select Googles Gemini as the chatbot of choice in Apple Intelligence. Currently, the only third-party option Apple Intelligence offers is OpenAIs ChatGPT. New Macs and iPhones? WWDC is historically a heavily software-focused event. So if youre hoping to see new iPhones announced at WWDC25, expect to be let down. Apple will unveil its new iPhone range in the fall, as usual. But whether the new iPhone family will be called iPhone 17 or instead will be rebranded as iPhone 26 is yet to be seen. As for other hardware, there is an outside chance that Apple could unveil a new Mac Proits highest-end, professional desktop computr at WWDC25, since the event is still, ostensibly, one focused on professionals. The current Mac Pro was introduced at WWDC23 in June 2023, making it two years old this month. New Apple TV hardware is also a possibility, or that launch may wait until the fall. However, we wont need to wait much longer to know for certain exactly what Apple will unveil at WWDC25. The conference kicks off on Monday, June 9, with the WWDC keynote scheduled for 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. Can a visual redesign lead to an AAPL stock boost? The visual redesign may be the most significant announcement at WWDC from an investor perspective. Visual redesigns are eye-catching to even non-techie consumers, and they may spur buyers to spend on a shiny new iPhonesomething investors are no doubt hoping for, as an increase in iPhone sales may help boost the company’s struggling stock. As of close on trading on June 6, Apple stock (Nasdaq: AAPL) has fallen over 18% since the beginning of the year. However, much of that stock price decline has little to do with Apple’s sales or financial fundamentals and is instead due to President Trump’s tariff threats against China and Apple itself. Apple sources a majority of its products from China, and any tariff that Trump implements on goods from the country could significantly impact Apple’s bottom line, despite Apple CEO Tim Cook’s best efforts. However, if you look at the entirety of the past 12 months, AAPL stock is still up nearly 5%, with the stock price just under $204. If the visual redesign of its operating systems indeed helps sell more iPhones and other devices, it could help the company’s shares move back in the direction of their all-time high of just over $260 apiece, reached in December 2024.
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E-Commerce
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