The newest trend in work: explaining the benefits of paw-ternity leave

If you have a new pet, this might be the best news you’ve heard all week: more and more companies are implementing options for new pet-owners to work from home in order to bond, train, and comfort their new pets.

Nina Hale, a marketing company in Minnesota, has recently implemented this fur-ternity leave, as some people call it. It allows the owner of a new pet to work from home for one week following the adoption of a new pet.

This is a huge benefit to new pet-owners, as the first week is crucial to establishing a relationship with a new pet. It also ensures the new pet is able to adapt to the new environment with less stress and better training.

It also allows you to establish a healthy environment for your pet, especially in the summer or winter when temperatures are at their most extreme. HVAC inspections are required twice a year but many new pet-owners don’t realize their pets need to stay in a temperate environment, just like humans.

The vice president of Nina Hale, Allison McMenimen, helped create the new policy.

“For a lot of people, their pets are their children. Our employees are at all different stages of their lives,” she claims.

McMenimen realizes that working with employees to develop programs like these will help to create a more beneficial working environment. This is just one way a business can help retain current employees and create an incentive for new ones.

“The idea of offering benefits that just help keep employees at the office, that’s over,” McMenimen notes.

This is good news for people searching for new jobs. According to a poll by Gallup in 2017, around 35% of employees have changed their job over the course of the last three years. Opting for options like paw-ternity leave may help a business thrive.

This marketing company isn’t the first business to adopt such a program, however. mParticle, a New York data company, was one of the first companies to make the news regarding allocated time off to bond with a new pet. The company offers up to two weeks paid time off for the adoption of a rescue pet or with the adoption of an exotic pet.

This is crucially important for exotic pet owners. Nearly all exotic pets adopted by unsuspecting owners will be released into the wild, according to Phys.org of the Science X Network. This causes dangerous conditions for many environments; exotic species can quickly become invasive species, damaging ecosystems and spreading diseases.

But why do so many people release their pets into the wild?

Rutgers Doctoral student and leader of the study on exotic pets, Oliver Stringham, offers an answer.

“The owners may underestimate the space and costs needed to keep such animals as they grow into adults. Boa constrictors and reticulated pythons grow over [eight] feet long. African clawed frogs and Russian tortoises live 30 years or more,” Stringham explains.

Because these owners underestimate the lifespan or size of their animals, they release them into the wild rather than putting forth the time and effort to help them live long, happy lives as pets. Stringham encourages pet owners to look into shelters, buy-back programs, and rehoming services if they find themselves unable to take care of their pet.

Luckily, these new programs implemented by new jobs are working to change the game on pet-care. You might want to talk to your employer about implementing a similar policy!