Could a pet-friendly workplace boost productivity in your marketing team?

With stress-related illness costing businesses in the UK 11.7 million working days last year, there’s no wonder companies are looking for innovative ways to increase productivity and decrease stress among their workforce.

Research suggests that one way of doing this is by creating dog-friendly workplaces with scientists finding that people become more trusting, relaxed and nicer towards each other after interacting with a canine.    

Many high tech companies such as Google, Salesforce, Etsy, Autodesk and VMWare welcome employees’ dogs, as well as (perhaps more predictably) pet food manufacturers such as Mars and Nestlé, and charities like the Dogs Trust. And recently, to help attract Millennials, some businesses have added pet-oriented employee benefits, such as company-subsidised pet insurance or “paw-ternity leave” (days off when an employee adopts a new dog).  

Never one to be left behind, Clear has been trialling the effects of having an office dog. Meet Mr Briggers, a cocker spaniel belonging to our MD, Rachel. He’ll be two years old in November and is a registered Pets as Therapy dog. Despite being a young dog, we started with him as we felt his temperament and character would be suitable for the office environment. However, other people in the organisation have not been interested in bringing their dogs in, feeling it would be stressful for them and the dog!   

Here’s a little sum up of our experience of a dog friendly office:   

The sunny side

• Improved morale. There is something about having Mr Briggers in the office that does create an awesome energy lift. He usually comes in on a Friday too so it really adds to that ‘Friday feeling’.
• Breaking the ice. We’ve been recruiting recently and we actually brought Mr Briggers down into the boardroom to say hi when candidates arrived for their first interview (having confirmed they liked dogs!). This was a great way to break the ice and put us all at ease, although he wouldn’t have been any use in making decisions as he kept falling asleep on the job!
• Bonding time. Work can be all consuming at times and it’s easy to slip into bad habits of staying at your desk, head down and working through. So having a dog in the office was a good excuse to get out in the fresh air for walkies at lunch time and take the time to talk to colleagues some more.

Real-life considerations

• Not everyone like dogs. For some people having a dog in the office could be a negative. We have some team members who aren’t dog lovers and although they’ve enjoyed having Brig in, the feedback has been that this is mainly because he is well trained, well managed, is quiet and doesn’t dribble (there’s clearly been some previous bad experiences here!).
• Will a dog be disruptive? When we’ve discussed the concept as a team the view has been very mixed with many people nervous to have multiple dogs in the office for fear of it being more disruptive than it is beneficial – particularly in the open plan office area (whereas Brig has tended to stay in Rachel’s office where people can come and pet him as and when it suits them). Clearly some larger organisations have ways and means of managing this such as supplying puppy pens to go next to people’s desks and even having a ‘pet passports’ system where dogs need to pass before they can come into work.
• Allergies. This is a really big consideration. If colleagues have allergies to dog fur then this could mean a ‘bring your dog to work’ policy is a no go.

Do you have a dog friendly office? How does it work? For now we’re going to keep to our occasional visits from Mr Briggers and see how we go – we’re a smaller, agile organisation and this approach works well for us. If you’re heading in for a meeting and you’d particularly like him to attend – just say and we’ll check his diary ;-) 

Follow Mr Briggers on Instagram

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