I saw a picture on the internet of a tongue lolling greyhound who had been labelled “Jerry from HR” in the staff profiles of a particular group – and that started me thinking.
That’s it! Dogs would be great as business executives. After all, most dogs (apart from pit bulls) are really, really good at HR (human relations).
So, CEO person, before you go out and replace the HR department and your entire management team with artificial intelligence bots, have a good hard think about warm, friendly, smelly, loyal, talented canines who will improve productivity, boost morale, slash costs and introduce interesting new smells and stains to the office. And they will do all this simply for a daily bowl of food, a play with a slobbery old ball and a friendly neck rub.
Dogs boost company morale and increase productivity.
Unlike business bots, dogs are friendly, funny and faithful. What AI bot will sense your despair, jump onto your lap and gaze lovingly into your teary eyes when your request for a promotion has been rejected yet again?
What AI bot can leap for joy, knocking you over, like a dalmatian can and then, when you’re flat on your back, breathe doggy breath right up your sinuses, rebooting your brain? I’d like to see an AI business bot do that!
Nothing and no-one can encourage employees like dogs can.
Do you have a delicate, underperforming employee like Shane who is regularly shattered by your mildest criticism? Employ a dog to deliver your “try harder” note by mouth instead of sending a curt email. It will soften the blow and the note.
Your workers may feel despairing when their ancient Windows 95 PCs you supplied, give them error messages like this:
“Error 405 – Mouse not found. Left click mouse to fix this problem”
Now the average dog, especially terriers, loves to take on this sort of practical productivity problem at very low cost. A Jack Russell terrier for instance, was born for just this task.
A quick whistle from your shattered employee Shane, and Jack the terrier will trot over, eager to help.
“Find the mouse Jack, find the mouse!” Is the only command needed. Give him a sniff of the mouse pad and Jack will scamper under the desk, over the printer, into the rubbish bin, all through Shane’s jacket, lunch box and his secret collection of soothing teddy bears in his top drawer, until he emerges triumphantly with Shane’s missing mouse, gripped in his drooling mouth.
Jack the terrier will then drop the missing mouse at Shane’s feet complete with teeth marks. As a bonus, Jack may well have clicked the mouse at just the right screen prompt so that Shane’s PC is now playing a YouTube video of the Bluey dogs singing “Lollipop, lollipop, Yum yum yum”.
Shane the worker will now feel reconnected to his mouse and his work and will be full of adoring doggy love. Show me a bot that can do that!
Dogs can inspire workers.
Do the employees of your milk carton factory need motivation and inspiration to keep on churning out milk cartons day after day without going crazy? Don’t think that a series of meaningless slogans from Siri or a disjointed lecture from ChatGPT will cut it. In fact, that approach will probably just build Human Resentment – the wrong sort of HR.
But there is a much better alternative. Pass on your managerial responsibilities for raising employee morale to caring, crazy canines. Dogs can inspire as well as hire and fire.
Have you ever seen dachshunds racing one another?
Despite their stumpy little legs, low-slung bellies and caterpillar speed, they are delightful, daffy and doggedly devoted to the task.
Seeing a dachshund race will inspire your workers to press on cheerfully in their low-slung work while emitting a yelp every now and then out of sheer excitement.
So why not run a dachshund versus worker race every Friday up and down the office corridor or around the factory car park? If the randomly chosen employee is faster than the dog, then he/she will win a free tour of the CEO’s office and a detailed explanation of all his photos of the CEO with various famous personages, plus the keys to the executive washroom for half a day.
If the dog wins, it will be given a dead rat, which is both recreational and nutritious. Just for fun why not swap around the prizes? I’m sure the dachshund would enjoy the smells and opportunities of the executive washroom.
(See the ground breaking book by K & D Barr “The Fido Factor – How to get a leg up at work”).
Dogs are great at getting your executive dirty work done
We all know how dogs use all their senses to observe everything and everyone and react carefully and appropriately. We once had a Beagle who was convinced that the man working on the roof next door was up to no good – probably installing listening devices for foreign spies such as the Irish Wolfhound from around the corner. So she howled at him as only a Beagle can howl, warning us of the dangers of Roof Man. We were touched by her protective instincts for us and were wary of employing the roofer, who had been huffing and puffing every time he climbed the ladder and may well have been the Big Bad Wolf in disguise.
Dogs use their amazing sense of sight and smell to identify not only foot odour, tinea and the presence of meat pies on someone’s breath but also the human pheromones that indicate over-friendliness, cocksure arrogance and boring obsessions with football.
Dogs are the ultimate obsession sensors, lie detectors and arrogance indicators. They are very useful when hiring new employees and sorting out the “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” list.
So, save on expensive interviews, CV lie detectors and tests of their knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin. Just line up all the job seekers and describe a series of stressful work situations which they may face, such as the free doughnut delivery being cancelled or the tendency of the office shredder to cut off their fingernails.
Then get the dogs to trot up and down the line and sit down in front of the most unfriendly person, the most arrogant and the greediest ones who smell most strongly of doughnuts.
Repeat this process until you have eliminated most job applicants, then ask the two remaining candidates to take the dogs for a walk. Carefully look for the kindest one who pats the dog, makes encouraging clicking sounds, rewards good behaviour and allows face licks – and there is your ideal new HR manager.
Don’t do it yourself – delegate your difficult duties to the dogs.
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© Geoff Milton 2024
Ironically, the images are based on Bing Image Creator output
