Employers who cultivate a pet-friendly environment stand to attract best talent

Conor Skehan

Pets have become accustomed to having their owners at home full-time. Photo: Ekaterina Martynova

May 22 2022 02:30 AM

The world of work is not changing by gradual transitions. Instead, people who study describe the changes that our world is experiencing as a ‘step-change’. We are living through a period where a number of factors are colliding and driving changes to the world of work that is arguably as big as what happened after the First World War, when traditional certainties such as hats and horses disappeared overnight.

An employer in 1910 who specialised in headgear or equestrian supplies seemed to have an assured future because these types of businesses were many centuries old. But by 1920, both were in steep decline, while by 1930 both were increasingly exotic specialisations. The changes happened in startlingly similar circumstances. The world between 1910 and 1920 experiences a pandemic, war and a surge of new types of communications, energy, transport and manufacturing.

Today’s abrupt return of rising inflation and interest rates is about to cause a lot of job changing due to pay dissatisfaction and company failures. This high employee attrition will combine with the estimated 40pc of workers who are reported to be seeking new jobs since Covid. This will cause a very high pressure on employers to retain and attract talent, especially in older or more traditional types of enterprises.

It is becoming increasingly important for employers to understand and accept these changes so that they can begin to quickly adapt new strategies. The Great Resignation is becoming a game-changer that makes the creation of an attractive workplace a ‘must-have’ not a ‘nice-to-have’. The quality of a workplace and employer has never been more important.

Dramatic changes in work practices combined with Covid-related job losses have caused many people to reconsider their values. For some, this means abandoning ideas of living to work – because many have realised the value from the simpler pleasures of a home-based life. Instead, many now choose to work only to live, often on more modest wages.

More and more people are opting out of unrewarding jobs or leaving unattractive employers in pursuit of living more meaningful and enjoyable lives.

Furthermore, the emergence of working from home is challenging the very fabric of the place of work for many: the office. The employer’s traditional rewards of pay, promotion, parking and permanence will now need to include three further P’s – namely Pets, Pushbikes and Power. A population that increasingly lives in small or single-family units has made a number of changes during the pandemic.

There has been a very large increase in pet ownership. Workplaces that accommodate pets are seen as increasingly attractive. Research has found that 46pc of owners would consider changing jobs to a pet-friendly workplace. Many of these new pets have become accustomed to a full-time home presence by the new owner. Pet-care is rapidly joining child-care as a limiting factor in choices that affect employment.

Similarly, the pandemic has combined with increased environmental awareness to induce another change, namely a large increase in cycling to work. There has also been a marked increase in the use of electric cars. Workplaces that offer cycling and car-charging are increasingly seen as more attractive.

At the same time, the activities and location of many traditional activities, such as law, accountancy, design and project management will all require new types of specialisations and training to accommodate new ways of communicating through new media.

Finally, to these new types of work, we must add new types of workers. These fall into two very different types – older and younger.

People over 65 will become an increasingly large part of the workforce, for a variety of reasons that include longer, healthier lives, avoidance of retirement boredom and the need to keep earning.

This cohort is becoming increasingly attractive to employers. They can have high productivity, are good team players and often bring the added benefit of experience and perspective. However, older workers have different needs that often centre around new and better types of training, job-security, benefits, communications and flexibility.

Younger workers – especially millennials [those born between 1981 and 1996] are increasingly likely to be ‘digital nomads’ who work from a wide variety of locations, only occasionally visiting the main workplace.

Many of this generation are more motivated by working for an employer with values that they admire.

For many of them, values matter more than money or prestige. Establishing jobs and workplaces that are perceived to be meaningful can be very challenging for established companies – though it is usually a worthwhile investment, because customer decisions are also increasingly likely to be motivated by values and culture.

Additionally, the world is already seeing the emergence of new emphasis or entirely new types of jobs. New emphasis will be on traditional jobs in areas such as personal care, grooming, mental and physical healthcare where demand is exploding.

Other traditional roles, such as retail and commerce, education and entertainment will increasingly move online requiring new skills.

Digital content-creation for advertising and marketing will blend with gaming and entertainment where hobbies will become industries. All of these will require new types of engineers, managers and researchers.

Issues such as values and pets are joining older notions of ‘family friendly’ working conditions to mean that employment must increasingly be seen as a relationship in which a good employer facilitates a wide range of personal choices made by their employees. The contract between a company and its employees is now as much social as economic.

Understandably, these days, most attention is monopolised by the way that the Ukrainian War is convulsing international relations and the economics of energy. Other, bigger changes are also happening, especially in the world of work, that we ignore at our peril.

No employer can afford to ignore these changes, as they affect where and how we work, and who we work with.

Making a workplace attractive and employees happy has suddenly become much more challenging.

Only those who adapt to the new workplace will survive, while the best will thrive.

Employers who cultivate a pet-friendly environment stand to attract best talent

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