We have been asked this question a lot recently! So as a dog lover, I’m all for it, but not everyone likes our “best friends” so make sure you do some ground work before just going ahead and inviting your pet pooches into work!
Firstly, you should seek consent from the landlord of your premises and check that your lease even allows dogs at work, and you may need an appropriate insurance policy. You might then want to seek written consent from your employees that they are happy to have dogs in the office. Many people are genuinely frightened of dogs, so you need to ensure that everyone is happy to have dogs in the office.
Once you have obtained the consent of your landlord, insurer and employees, you should draft a pet-policy. The policy should underline that owners are responsible for controlling their dogs at all times and that each of them needs to get your permission to bring their dogs to their place of work. It should also give guidelines as to what is expected from both owners and dogs and what will happen to the owner or the dog in cases of inappropriate doggy behaviour. For instance each dog coming to the workplace should be vaccinated and kept on a leash, and should have an identity tag with the owner’s contact details.
You may also wish to specify that the dogs should be clean and well-groomed ahead of their day at work and be well socialised – nobody wants dogs that will be jumping up at them, sniffing at people, barking constantly or chewing peoples’ shoes for example. Each participating employee should bring a “Dog Care Pack” with them for their dog including treats, toys, a lead, water bowl and food, and appropriate bedding for their dog.
The next step will be to pet-proof your workplace (you might want to hide cables that can be chewed!) and to keep an accurate record of all dogs coming into the workplace.
Make sure the workplace is kept clean and adheres to relevant hygiene standards.
Lastly, as with anything new like this, before making it official, I would suggest that you have a “trial” period either for the Dogs at Work policy as a whole or for each dog. One dog may be great for team morale and be very well behaved, but every dog is different and some are happy to sit quietly in their bed and others aren’t, and some dogs won’t mix well with other dogs either.
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