The UPSA lifted the ban on black and natural black hairstyles

This Shipping company Many of its long-running strict rules are standing on the personal appearance of its employees who talk to people – mostly its army of delivery drivers.

The changes loosen the previous strict limits on facial hair (no For most employees, And the mustache is limited above the top of the lips), how men can wear their hair (nothing longer than the collar length) and hairstyles (no aphros or braid). While the styles should still be appropriate for the business and not worry about safety, certain limitations have been removed.

Wednesday’s announcement also includes the lifting of gender-specific rules, including rules such as the length of uniform shorts. New rules, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, Was posted on the internal company website for employees.

“Our CEO, Carol Tom, listened to the feedback from employees and heard that the change in this area makes them more likely to recommend UPS as an employer,” UPSA said in a statement.

The EEOC alleges that … UPS failed to hire or promote people whose religious practices contradicted its appearance policy and failed to provide religious facilities, “the EOC also alleged at the time. Employees were isolated or facilities non-supervised without long customer contact, hair according to religious beliefs in the position behind the facility. “

The company then proceeded to grant religious and medical exemptions for facial hair.

But Wednesday’s announcement addresses the pervasive problem of unconscious bias that is reflected in the rules, according to Lucinda Dunkalfe, founder and CEO of the executive hiring firm Abobboard.com, which promotes diversity.

“These policies are the hold-over of different eras and reflect the bias behind progress and performance,” said Dunkalf, who hailed the change as “great news”.

“He never realized that“ natural ”hair is impractical,” he added.

About 300,000 UPS employees are represented by the Temasters Union, and many of them apply the previous rules. The union praised the change.

“We are very excited about that,” the teamsters said in a statement. “The Union has fought the previous guidelines many times over the years through grievance / arbitration proceedings and contract negotiations. We have proposed a fairly streamlined claim during several previous national negotiations.”

It’s been a busy year for UPS. UPS The proportion of packages operated by has increased 13.5% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, and the company has hired 39,000 permanent new employees in the second quarter of 2020, and is set to hire more than 100,000 additional seasonal employees during the peak holiday season. .