Take a lead and allow pets in the office - Hays Viewpoint - careers advice Viewpoint careers advice blog

Take a lead and allow pets in the office - Hays Viewpoint - careers advice Paul Steadman is Head of HR â€" Northern Europe for Purina, a subsidiary company of Nestlé that produces pet supplies. He discusses the benefits of allowing employees to bring pets to the office. It’s become very topical in the last year or so, but we’ve actually been doing Pets at Work for 14 years within Purina, and for just over two years in the UK headquarters of Nestlé. For us, it’s at the heart of what we do, and what we’re passionate about. We believe that people and pets are better together, and that when they bond, life becomes richer. Work is such an important part of our lives, we spend a lot of time there and increasingly a work-life blend (as opposed to work-life balance) is becoming more important for people. The opportunity to bring pets into the workplace allows people to blend their life, improve their work experience and make the work environment a better place to be. From our experience, allowing dogs in the office does that and it’s what our people tell us. It creates better connections â€" we’re a large, open-plan office of about 1,000 people. We’re seeing people connecting where previously they might not talk. It’s great for activity â€" people are definitely walking more, and that’s not just the dog owners. People will actually come and ask if they can exercise the dogs of colleagues. And it creates a sense of fun â€" the dogs can come in meetings, employees aren’t restricted in that way. At Purina, we’ve created a Pets At Work toolkit to enable other companies to adopt a pet friendly policy like we have in safe and efficient way. There’s lots of information on our website but there are several key stages. First of all, get the leadership of the organisation on board with the idea. Next, try it in a controlled way by having a dog experience day where people can bring dogs in and experience it without necessarily being concerned or worried that they’re committing to something open-ended. That very often opens people’s minds. The opportunity to bring pets into the workplace allows people to make the work environment a better place to be Then, importantly, it’s about asking your people for feedback. We encourage companies to ask everyone afterwards what they think and how they feel about it becoming more regular. That is often a tipping point where people, having seen it, can be more open to the idea. However, it’s also important to create an environment that works for everybody. That means allowing for people who either aren’t that keen on dogs or perhaps have a phobia or an allergy. For example, we engaged specialists in allergies and found that, in our building of 1,000 people, there were six people diagnosed as having an allergy to dogs. The recommended clinical advice is to provide a space of about five metres separation from someone with an allergy to a dog, then the shouldn’t have a problem. It’s also vital to make sure the dogs are comfortable in the workplace and it’s something that we do provide practical hints and tips on how to do. All the dogs have had a behavioural assessment, as we need to make sure that they’re socialised, that they’re comfortable in the work environment and that they’re comfortable for short periods where they’re not with their owners. People are very often surprised when they visit our offices that they don’t hear barking dogs. It happens occasionally if they get excited, but actually they’re pretty quiet a lot of the time and they do spend quite a lot of time asleep. Very often with something like a Pets at Work scheme, for a lot of people it’s something they haven’t experienced and therefore they may worry that there are barriers or issues that can’t be overcome to make it work for everyone. Our experience is that actually, the barriers aren’t very high. If you enjoyed reading this Hays Journal blog, you might also find this articles to be of interest: Why staff engagement matters to your business How to improve your work-life balance Five ways to give staff a sense of purpose How to attract Generations X, Y and Z to your business