Pet-Friendly Workplace – An Innovation That Guarantees the Employees’ Well-Being?

• #Personnel

Many companies seem to follow a trend of bringing their pets to their work. This might be a result of the global pandemic – during the peak times of COVID-19, people stayed home, adopted pets, and naturally, pets and their owners got very attached to each other. Many candidates and employees see this phenomenon as a huge advantage. Even though this idea sounds super fun, pets in the office have a lot of benefits related to the employees’ well-being and a pet-friendly office environment surely has more advantages than disadvantages. However, certain rules must be set before to avoid certain risks.

How the pet-friendly office can be beneficial for the employees?

We could find a million reasons why bringing your pets to work can be beneficial, but we would like to focus on the main points.

Emotional support. This one might seem too obvious, but the pets in the office can contribute to your employees’ mental health more than you can imagine. Many kinds of research were conducted by scientists about what kind of effects pets have around working people and all of them confirm the same theories. For example, research, which participated around 6 thousand people, conducted in the UK by the Universities of York and Lincoln confirmed that, because they are often attuned to humans and offer emotional support, pets can help relieve stress. An employee’s need to be with a pet is perhaps the most effective approach to forcibly diverting him or her from work for a little break and this break full of joy and laughter is the most powerful remedy for stress and tiredness of employees.

Physical health. Aside from the coziness and emotional support, pets in the office can be beneficial for the employees’ physical health as well. Having a pet can obviously increase a person’s physical activity, but a short break from work with the computer to take a dog out for a walk or just to play for a few minutes with a pet can count as a valuable exercise.

Social relationships. It would be very hard to find a person that does not love animals. Having a pet in the office could be a great conversation starter or just a great conversation subject in general. This goes for both introverts and extroverts. Most pets, just like humans, crave socialization, so if, let’s say, a few employees bring their pets to their work, the pets have a wonderful chance to create some meaningful relationships between themselves and socialize. Isn’t that cute?

How to create a pet-friendly office?

If you decide to make your office a pet-friendly environment, you should consider a few things before announcing anything. The most crucial thing to do is to ask if every company employee supports this idea and if you have employees who have allergies. This should also be highlighted in the job ads and job interviews. Besides that, find out if your office building’s policy allows pets. Lastly, make sure that people who bring pets to work have a safe and closed space to work, and people who do not want to be in the same space as pets have a closed space where pets are not allowed.

The basic set of rules for a pet-friendly office

• Conditions must be made to work in a space where the pets cannot enter for those who do not want to work around pets for any reason. Also, there should be clear rules about which spaces in the office pets are not permitted.

• Office building regulations must allow pets to be kept inside.

• The pet must be mentally stable and vaccinated.
  

• The pet must be well-trained, obedient, confident, and able to interact with people and other pets. The pet must, above all else, not attack any other being in the office.

• The pet must not disturb other employees with noise, such as barking, squealing, or persistent mischief.

• The office must be kept tidy and organized.

• The owner of the pet takes full responsibility in case of damage to an object or injury/attack of a person.