Ways to Create Pet-Friendly Workplaces

As corporate culture and workplace rules have started to relax, one thing has started to increase: pet-friendly workplaces.

What was once akin to Take Your Daughter to Work Day, bringing your pets to the office has become a widely accepted, and encouraged, cultural phenomenon.

Studies have even shown that having a dog in the office increases collaboration and employees’ views of each other. However, before you bring your dog to work, you need to set up some guidelines and rules for creating pet-friendly workplaces.

First, host a meeting with your staff to talk about having pets in the office and create a policy. Discuss expectations for the pet’s behavior and your employees’, if there’s an area for the pet’s breaks, and what to do if the pet is aggressive toward employees or employees fail to keep up with work and keep the office clean.

Once you’ve set some ground rules, you can start creating pet-friendly workplaces. Go over proper pet etiquette, responsibilities and creating a pet-free space for those who are allergic or afraid of animals.

It’s important to check in with your employees at every step of the planning process, as well as after you create pet-friendly workplaces, to ensure that they’re happy and can work productively and positively.

As they become more and more popular, you might find pet-friendly workplaces around the corner or just up the street, or both!