Can Employers Control Appearance, Call Employees on Leave, or Ban Car Decals?

Can we set appearance expectations for the team?

Question: Our medspa is known for providing natural-looking cosmetic procedures. We do not provide extreme treatments and we do not want our staff to have unnatural-looking cosmetic work, like overly large lips or excessive botox. Can we set these expectations around appearance?

The Legal Side: In most cases, yes, you can set expectations around employee appearance that align with your brand. Businesses regularly establish grooming or presentation standards, especially in industries where image and aesthetics are part of the service you provide. For a medspa that promotes natural looking results, it is reasonable to expect that your team’s appearance reflects that philosophy.

The main boundary to keep in mind is medical treatment. Some procedures that affect appearance are not purely cosmetic. Botox, for example, is commonly prescribed for migraines, TMJ, muscle disorders, or excessive sweating. If an employee receives a treatment like this for medical reasons and it changes their appearance, you should not ask them to stop that treatment. In those situations, medical and disability accommodation laws may come into play.

The Human Side: Your team is a reflection of your brand. In a medspa environment, clients often look to staff as examples of the type of results they can expect. Wanting employees to embody a natural aesthetic is not unusual for a business with that philosophy.

The key is to communicate the expectation clearly and professionally. Instead of policing specific procedures, frame the standard around your brand values. You can explain that your practice focuses on subtle, natural looking enhancements and that employees are expected to present themselves in a way that reflects that approach.

The practical takeaway is that you can set general appearance expectations tied to your brand, but your policy should leave room for medical situations and avoid targeting protected characteristics.

Can I contact employees while they are on leave?

Question: The billing coordinator will be going out on leave in a few weeks. Despite trying to prepare for their absence, it seems like there is a never-ending amount of questions that come up that we are unprepared to handle. I’m worried this will be an ongoing issue once they’re out. Is it ok if I reach out to them while they’re on leave with clarifying questions to make sure we are handling things properly? 

The Legal Side: This is a smart question to ask before the employee goes on leave. It’s very common for a key employee to step away and suddenly realize just how much institutional knowledge they carry.

What matters legally is not whether you contact the employee at all, but how often and how much work they are actually performing. Very minimal contact may fall under what’s considered de minimis work. For example, a quick text that takes 30 to 60 seconds to answer is not automatically a problem. The issue arises when those short interactions start adding up to several minutes or recurring tasks.

Once an employee is spending measurable time answering questions, you can run into wage and hour issues if that time is not being tracked and paid. On top of that, contacting employees who are on protected leave, such as FMLA or certain state paid leave programs, can interfere with their leave rights. Even well-intentioned check-ins can be viewed as undermining the purpose of the leave, and in some cases interfere with the employee’s ability to receive paid benefits.

The Human Side: That said, small businesses often run into situations where a quick clarification is unavoidable, especially with something as detail-driven as billing. It’s okay to have a conversation with the employee before they leave and ask whether they would be comfortable answering the occasional quick question if something truly unexpected comes up.

If they’re okay with it, set some guardrails. Agree on who is permitted to contact them and when. Commit to compiling questions rather than sending texts throughout the day. The goal should be to minimize interruptions and only reach out when it is genuinely necessary. You should also make it clear that if responding takes more than a minute or two, they should track that time and they will be paid for it.

Even if they agree, preparation is still important. Ideally someone on leave is not going to be needed by the office, to allow them their needed time away. Circumstances can also change during a leave for your billing person, so they may end up not being available to you. 

Use the time before the leave begins to identify where the knowledge gaps are. Ask the employees who will be covering the billing coordinator’s duties to compile their questions ahead of time. That process often reveals where training, documentation, or clearer procedures are needed. Creating checklists, written guides, or short training sessions now can significantly reduce the number of questions that come up once the employee is out.

Taking this balanced approach helps you respect the purpose of the leave while also acknowledging the operational realities of running a small business. The more preparation you do upfront, the less likely it is that you will need to rely on that occasional check-in.

Can employers require employees to remove offensive car decals when parked at the workplace?

Question: I have several employees who have car decorations that I find unprofessional. We live in conservative area and I don’t want patients seeing swear words when they pull into the parking lot. Can I tell the employees they need to remove them?

The Legal Side: We understand the concern. It is natural to worry that vulgar or controversial messages could reflect poorly on your business. However, you generally cannot control employees’ personal property, including decorations on their own vehicles.

It would be different if the vehicle were company-owned or clearly tied to your business through logos or identifying information. In that case, you would have more authority to regulate appearance. But when employees are driving their own cars, you’re stepping into much murkier territory.

There are also practical and legal complications to consider. Do you own the parking lot, or is it shared or public? Where is the line between what is “unprofessional” and what is simply personal expression? What happens if an employee borrows a car with something you would not approve of? Policies regulating personal vehicles can quickly become difficult to enforce consistently and may create employee relations issues or even claims of unequal treatment.

The Human Side: Before jumping to a prohibition, think about what problem you are really trying to solve. If the concern is visibility to patients, there may be simpler solutions. You could assign employee parking to an area farther from the entrance or ask staff to back into spaces so decals are less visible. Those approaches address the optics without policing personal property.

If you feel strongly that certain displays are harming the professional image of the practice, that is a broader culture conversation, not just a parking lot rule. Any policy would need to be thoughtfully crafted, clearly defined, and consistently enforced.

Long story short, we would not recommend telling employees what they can and cannot display on their personal vehicles without a larger strategy in place. Sometimes adjusting logistics is far easier than regulating personal expression.