Our fluffy secret trick to guaranteed happy vibes
Pretty much every morning here starts with Lola, the energetic chocolate lab, busting out the lift in a fit of excitement. She seriously LOVES coming to work. “Bringing my dog [Lola] to work every day is the BEST! I feel better knowing she’s not at home alone all day and she loves coming into work to see all her friends. It’s great that I can share her with the community here and let her brighten up people’s days.” ~ Corina Best, Moonshot Labs
One of our residents puts it best: “I like people, and I love dogs. Having great people and great dogs around helps me feel healthier, happier and more productive at work! A dog cuddle a day, keeps that bad stuff away!” ~ Will Heine, Anderson-Smith Group.
Occasionally we meet people concerned about the reality of operating in a work environment that allows and supports the presence of pets (Olsen, 2015). The question appears to have been receiving an equal opposition as support so let’s talk about this. From experience, and as supported by studies in the field, we have been able to appreciate the importance of building dynamic businesses which in their nature have been very stressful. Our community has always recognised the advantages that arise from human-dog interactions and hence developed a passion for a dog-friendly landscape and working environment. The benefits have been enormous spanning from the growing teams, the existing employees and the overall atmosphere.
Benefits of a Dog-Friendly Office
In the most simplistic manner, a dog-friendly office or workplace helps senior management in the process of attracting the best talent and hence facilitates employee recruitment processes (Zimmerman, 2016). Like some employers, the majority of job seeking individuals treasure their pets and therefore look favourably on pet-friendly offices, considering them to be more desirable than their restrictive counterparts. In addition to helping in attracting talent for recruitment, the pet-friendly environment improves employee retention rates (Foreman, et al., 2017).
“Having dogs in the office has become such an important part of our workplace and culture. Whether it’s being a soundboard for new ideas or encouraging you to make the next meeting a walking one, they play an integral part in keeping the office calm and welcoming.” ~ James McLaren, Workplace Arcade — owner of Bell (the best dog in the world)
It is also worth appreciating that dogs improve the morale of their owners and this can be highly beneficial to a company on a few levels. As proven by research, the employees improve in productivity whenever they take short breaks between tasks and this is easily facilitated when working with their pets nearby (Waber et al., 2010).
“It’s true — doggos at work nurture productivity! They create an environment that is happier, calmer, more active and less stressful and really promote the idea of diversity and flexibility in the workplace.”
~ Emma Harrison, Eugene Labs
Dogs in the workplace can also have a social impact on employees as it has been shown to raise awareness of the need to consider rescue dogs (Abrams, 2017). More importantly, our dynamic appreciation of the usefulness of dog-friendly offices could be explained by the strategic lessons that each person can draw from the animals. Dogs have an immense sense of patience, gratitude, perseverance, and acceptance. These could be great lessons to be borrowed not only by the employees but also by the employers (Abrams, 2017). To succeed in the ever-changing work environment, it’s essential that both employees and investors benefit from have such attributes... Some days our fluffy community members help us remember this.
“Having the pups in the office always helps to calm my mood. They give unconditional love and my clients are always pleased to see them.” ~ Matt Yarnold, Ready Tech Go
Therefore, any opinion that challenges the positivity of embracing dog-friendly working environments could be causing more harm than good. Our community works to raise awareness of the benefits of such policies and would encourage interaction with pets while working whenever possible. This is a wake-up call to other community managers to consider the model of dog-friendly workplaces if they value cultivating a humble, open and dynamic environment.
