Who let the dogs out? The pandemic, of course!

Who let the dogs out? The pandemic, of course!

The pandemic has prompted a wave of changes to working practices and, with the war for talent on-going, power to demand lasting change has swung towards the employee.

Principal among these changes is working from home. It has been a life-changing development for many and its transformation from a niche agreement in specific circumstances, to being ubiquitous across the market.

However, the office still plays an important function in most businesses, particularly within law, to promote a firm’s culture, ensure that junior solicitors are getting the right level of exposure & supervision and those long leases on office blocks are being utilised!

Discussion around office working for leaders has become a hot topic and with the onus on keeping staff, the strategy taken by many is to focus on the carrot, not the stick. So how can the office be made more attractive to those who may prefer working from home?

One word: dogs.

So many people who could never have dreamt of owning a dog were suddenly spending months on end at home. Aside from this being a great chance to spend quality time with your puppy, housetraining and bonding, they were also great company during a lonely time for many.

However back to normal working practices cannot account for all of those pandemic pets and dog day-care has only so many spots.

Enter, the dog-friendly office.

On LinkedIn during 2022, there were as many as 75 concurrently active vacancies in London that specifically mentioned the words ‘office dog’.

As a dog lover, it feels like a straightforward thing to be in favour of, admittedly for entirely selfish reasons. They are a happy distraction that can take your mind off a particularly draining call with their ambivalent attitude to commercial agreements and negotiating fee structures.

But the science seems to back my biases up.

One of the first studies into this was conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University which found that having dogs in the office decreased employee stress while increasing job satisfaction, support and commitment.

"It's definitely good for the work atmosphere to have a dog in the office," said Marie-José Enders, who studies the relationship between animals and humans at the Open University. "Not only does your cortisol level drop when you stroke a dog; you also produce more of the hormone oxytocin, which makes you feel more relaxed and happy."

As a result, some of the biggest businesses in the world now have policies that allow their employees to regularly bring their pets to work, with Amazon, for example, ranking as one of the top dog-friendly companies in the US. Ferray Corporation in Tokyo long has been known as the company where you can work with cats since 2000 and offers its employees a stipend to adopt homeless cats and bring them to work, increasing productivity and happiness.

Here at DMJ we are lucky enough to have a flexible policy with having pets in the office. My first-hand experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Aside from the occasional bark, always at the wrong moment whilst on the phone, they have helped to keep most of us sane in an exciting but unrelenting year.