The hierarchy behind the Hawaiian shirts at Trader Joe's

(NEXSTAR) – If you’re shopping at Trader Joe’s and you need the kind of assistance that only a seasoned, veteran TJ’s employee can provide, you might want to look for someone in the busiest shirt you can find.

Trader Joe’s employees can often be seen wearing fairly plain T-shirts, long sleeve shirts or hoodies, usually with the silhouette of hibiscus flowers on the front or back. But then there are the workers who wear more multicolored button-up Hawaiian shirts, usually with some sort of flora motif.

More often than not, these are the store leaders, according to Trader Joe’s.

“All Trader Joe’s Crew Members wear colorful shirts, so they can be easily identified by customers. While all store leaders wear collared ones, others sometimes wear them as well,” a representative for the company’s corporate offices told Nexstar in an email.

The email did not elaborate on which “others” may be permitted to wear the collared shirts in addition to store leaders.

Speaking with Nexstar, Trader Joe’s employees at multiple locations said only workers in “leadership” positions — i.e., store leaders or assistant store leaders — are permitted to wear the collared shirts. (Social media posts shared by TJ’s employees have also suggested this to be the case.) One manager who spoke with Nexstar said these policies may “vary by store.”

In recent months, however, several self-identified Trader Joe’s employees have suggested that the hibiscus-designed shirts often worn by crew members are being phased out, or at least supplemented, with flower-free designs that simply say “Trader Joe’s” on the back or near the shoulder. Some of these uniforms can be seen in TikTok videos posted by employees.

A representative for Trader Joe’s did not say whether the hibiscus-flower shirts were being phased out, nor whether longer-tenured employees would still be allowed to wear the old design if indeed the flower-free shirts are the new standard. In an email, a spokesperson simply said the company uses “a variety of designs” for its shirts.

Whatever the case, late Trader Joe’s founder Joe Coulombe likely would have preferred that workers retain at least some of the Hawaiian-inspired elements, even if most no longer dress like Jimmy Buffet on his way to a luau. During a 2019 edition of the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast, Coulombe revealed that his initial idea for their attire was inspired by both Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise and a novel he was reading that had been set in the Polynesian islands.

“And that is why to this day the employees wear Hawaiian shirts,” Coulombe said. “And it kinda sorta worked.”