What’s wrong with working like a dog anyway?

by Michael VanDervort on 09/19/2010 16:13 0 comments , 710 views
Categories: Coaching & Mentoring, Social HR, Management & Policy, Talent Management

: Image via Wikipedia

Great HR means letting go

My buddy Frank Roche wrote a piece on the Know HR blog the other day called Sometimes Great HR means letting go and unleashing creativity.

He couldn’t be more right if he tried!

The article is about how the employees at IFRACTAL spontaneously decided to create a tagging wall in the office. Cheap and fun, inspiring and brilliant! Who wouldn’t want to work at a place like that?

Great HR means unleashing creativity

When I was the HR Director at Velocity Media, we ran what we termed a “Dog friendly work environment”. We allowed dogs in the office, which had about 20 employees. Some days, there were as many as 6 dogs. Chew toys littered the place. Bowls for pet food and water were sometimes a tripping hazard. People rarely left food on their desk, because it probably wouldn’t be there when you got back.

When we ran employment ads, we mentioned that there would be dogs in the work place. It was not unusual for an applicant to sit through an interview with a dog in their lap, or a couple curled around their ankles. The dogs became part of the screening process. They were also part of the office culture, often starting impromptu games of fetch, or begging for “employee walk breaks”.

No one was harmed in this experiment. Our employees enjoyed it a lot.

I personally miss working in that free wheeling small business work environment a lot.

What does your company do to “let the dogs out”, or let go and really unleash your HR creativity? I’d love to hear other brilliant ideas in the comments, and so would Merry and Cairo!