Google has always been known to be a canine-friendly company, but the one thing that apparently had escaped the notice of the media all along was a little paragraph tucked away amidst all the corporate jargon on the company’s investor relations website detailing the code of conduct that bounds the tech giant and its army of employees around the globe. Unbeknownst to the media that has been covering the company for years, the webpage actually devotes an entire paragraph detailing its ‘Dog Policy’ that spells out in no uncertain terms that love for man’s best friend is a part and parcel of Google’s official company policy. According to the text, “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out”.
Google is apparently pretty cool with the idea of its employees bringing their canine companions to work, where they are taken care of by caregivers. Of course, the animals need to be amiable and not go around the office barking, chasing or otherwise scaring or disturbing people looking to get some actual work done. Reports even indicate that many Google buses actually have “Dog Friendly” signs on them, but apparently nobody ever bothered to find out, in all these years, if it is just an informal understanding between dog lovers working at Google and the company’s management, or an actual official company policy that is important enough to merit a mention on the company’s investor relations page.
The whole issue came to light when at the ongoing World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, the CEO of Welltower, Mr. Thomas DeRosa, said that he believes that as part of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives, major corporations should offer daycare for the elderly parents of their employees, by setting up in-house systems for the same. According to him, it was Google’s dog-friendly policy that inspired him to suggest that something similar be done for seniors who need private care for their age-related frailties, but cannot really afford the prohibitive costs associated with the same.