Pet-Friendly: Taking Your Dog to Work with You
A couple of years ago, in the month of June, many offices in the United States celebrated the Take your dog to work day. Three hundred companies started this initiative, but the number has grown significantly over the years, reaching almost two thousand participants. Everyone wants to join the pet-friendly movement!
This information led a research company in San Francisco to conduct a study on the subject, and to find out the benefits of bringing our pets into the workplace. The results were substantial, revealing important benefits for pet owners, comparing them with those who didn’t have pets.
Currently, the movement to allow the pets access into hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and other centers, including some offices, is greatly increasing. There are many advantages, such as reduction of anxiety and an increase in levels of well-being, especially throughout stressful environments like workplaces.
Pet-friendly: benefits of bringing your pet along
Workers are less stressed when they can connect with their pet, for the simple reason that they have an emotional escape if they’re in stressful situations. What a relief it is to be able to touch your dog, or play games, or even to just be able to talk to them.
A study conducted by the Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the pet-friendly ones, revealed that those who can bring along their dog to work easily notice how their stress levels decrease when they do.
To confirm this finding, the stress levels of the three groups of employees were compared throughout the working day.
- On the one hand, those who had a dog and brought them to the office
- Then those who had a dog and left them at home
- And, finally, those who didn’t have pets
Another finding of these studies is that the reduction in the level of stress only occurs in people who brought their dog to the office. Neither those who left them at home, nor those who didn’t have pets, benefited at all.
Improvement in communication
Surprising as it is, taking the dog to the office is also an important stimulus which enhances relationships among coworkers. In addition to this, many studies confirm that dogs encourage conversations and facilitate communication between people in their workplaces.
Promoting creativity and productivity
Breaks to care for the dog during work hours contribute to improving overall accuracy and performance.
In this way, game time or a short walk in the company of your dog will have a great impact on workers’ health of workers and their levels of stress. It could also have positive consequences in decreasing requests for leave due to health problems, stress, or anxiety. If you don’t have a dog, there are many out there to adopt!
No daycare fees
Logically, in addition to the emotional benefits of having the dog by your side while you work, it’ll also positively impact your pocket. Among other things, because you won’t need to worry about spending money you could use for other things i.e. to pay for people to look after your dogs.
A clean conscience
It’s common for our work to take up a large part of our time. And then, if you add to it the time you spend traveling to and from work, going to the gym, socializing with your friends etc., then the hours you spend with your dog are very few in comparison.
Obviously, it all can bring you large amounts of guilt and worry because your dog is home alone. If you had the option to take it to work, your guilt would be non-existent.
The grateful animal
Another benefit is that bringing along a dog to the workplace will impact the state of mind of the dog. Consequently, they’ll be much happier. As they are highly social animals, they don’t enjoy being alone at all.
Some limits
There are many benefits to bringing along pets to the workplace. But you must also consider that not everyone likes to have an animal nearby. Either because they’re allergic or because they’re afraid of them. And, this is why it’s essential that the animals who are brought into the office are on their best behavior.
Dogs aren’t ideal candidates to go to the workplace with their owners if they:
- Display aggressive behavior towards people
- Aren’t house-trained
- Bark excessively
- Have any other sort of behavior that may be problematic
Another important thing to keep in mind is that dogs should be properly dewormed and free from any contagious disease.