The office where cats are welcome
A Japanese company encourages staff to bring their cats to the office
DEADLINES, computer crashes, presentations, meetings – the modern workplace can be stressful. But instead of chewing your nails to the quick or sending your fidget spinner into overdrive you could follow the example of one Japanese IT firm.
The Tokyo-based company is tackling the pressures of the office environment in the most adorable way possible – with cats.
Just imagine a cuddly moggy dozing on your desk, rubbing against your leg, nibbling on kibble near your keyboard or enjoying a catnap on your lap while you type away . . . This kitty utopia is precisely the calm atmosphere Hidenobu Fukuda has created at his company, Ferray.
Basically every day is bring-your-catto-work day. Ferray has been welcoming felines for nearly two decades after an employee asked to bring their pet to
Twork one day. Hidenobu agreed without hesitation and in 2000 transformed the company’s office into a purring paradise.
“Because it’s a small start-up company I figured allowing cats into the office would attract some excellent employees,” Hidenobu says.
Ferray is now a home-from-home to nine cats who eat, sleep and roam freely in the office – and the staff couldn’t be happier.
“When I was at work I would worry about my cat being alone at home,” says Eri Ito (35), whose pet now accompanies him to work every day. “It’s nice to be able to keep an eye on him.” URNS out there’s a science behind the idea too: researchers have found a link between an improved mood and owning an animal. Some even suggest owning a pet might decrease blood pressure and cholesterol. So it makes sense that animals in the workplace are conducive to a happier office.
But bringing your cat to work isn’t the only perk the feline-loving Hidenobu has allowed. He encourages his employees to adopt stray cats and even pays them a monthly stipend for doing so. “I also give ¥5 000 (about R580) a month to those who rescue a cat,” he says.
The “cat allowance”, as it’s called, has been paid to participating employees since 2011.
The Ferray cats even have their own Twitter account (@v_ume) where pictures of the pampered “puddytats” are put on display.
Cats aren’t the only calming animals at work in Japan. At IT corporate Oracle an old English sheepdog called Candy works as a “greeting and healing ambassador”, while recruiting company Pasona Group “hired” two goats in 2011 and two alpacas in 2013 as full-time employees. Their purpose? To be a soothing, healing presence. Tokyo is also home to some 60 registered cat cafés.
Sharing a workspace with cats comes with its own problems – hairy keyboards, telephone lines pulled from their sockets, computers shutting down when cables are yanked out or switches stepped on – but these are the occupational hazards of having playful kitties around.
Fortunately the employees are so chilled out they don’t seem to mind in the slightest.