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. Even though this idea sounds fun, pets in the office have a lot of benefits related to the employees’ well-being and a pet-friendly office environment surely has a lot of advantages.

How can a pet-friendly office be beneficial?

• Emotional support. Pets in the office can contribute to your employees’ mental health more than you can imagine. For example, research conducted in the UK by the Universities of York and Lincoln confirmed that 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. 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 valuable exercise.

• Social relationships. Having a pet in the office could be a great conversation starter or a general conversation subject. 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.

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. 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.

• 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.