Appearance | Why 'pretty' employees won't always succeed

When an employee turns up to work, they go armed with the expectation that they should be treated the same as their colleagues, regardless of their physical appearance.

While some employees may choose to strut in with a bouncy blow-dry or slick suit, others may opt for a more toned-down wardrobe choice. But this doesn’t mean that they are less capable or should be treated any differently because of it.

Despite this, a new study conducted by ScienceDirect found that people deemed ‘attractive’ get paid more, receive better job offers and have been viewed as generally more employable. University of Chicago Professor of Psychology Dario Maestripieri told Phycology Today that this was due to an evolutionary trait.

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“Good-looking people are more appealing as potential sex partners,” Maestripieri said, “and [so] other people choose to interact with them, to spend time near them, talk with them, buy insurance from them, and hire them as employees.” This even works on a global scale; University of Nevada research found that companies with attractive CEOs bring in better stock returns than ones with less traditionally attractive CEOs.