Pet dogs, therapy dogs, and service dogs can be seen in workplaces with increasing frequency. Although dogs may provide many benefits to employees and employers, their presence may introduce additional hazards and concerns to the work environment. Therefore, decisions to accept dogs in the workplace may include many considerations including the health, safety, and well-being of employees, legal and cultural sensitivities, and animal welfare. The present paper serves to introduce the issue of dogs in the workplace and outline the potential benefits and challenges to their presence. The legal accommodations afforded to certain types of dogs in workplace settings are discussed, and the research findings pertaining to the potential benefits of dogs on human health and well-being are summarized. The paper concludes with considerations for human resource management personnel in the areas of diversity, employee relations, ethics and corporate responsibility, organizational and employee development, safety and security, and legal considerations, as well as suggested topics for future research.

Introduction: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), which sets the standards for residency training, instituted work-hour restrictions in 2003. Our purpose was to assess residents’ perceptions of fatigue and local safety climate specific to these duty-hour restrictions. Methods: All residents (N=433) at one university were emailed a link to a survey in 2019. The survey included demographic details, on-call descriptors, an 18-point climate survey (CS), and the 33-point Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire (CFQ). The CS was adapted from a commonly used safety climate scale and intended to measure the respondent’s perceptions of their program’s attitudes and practices around resident duty-hour compliance. A Pearson correlational analysis was used to determine if there were associations between the variables. Results: Mean CS score was 12.89 (95% confidence interval, CI 12.32-13.46, N=164, 48.5%). Respondents were most likely to disagree with “Residents are told when they are at risk of working beyond ACGME duty-hour restrictions,” where 57 (34.7%) disagreed or strongly disagreed. Mean CFQ score was 16.02 (95% CI 14.87-17.17, N=113, 26.1%). As the CS score improved, CFQ scores decreased indicating an inverse relationship between duty-hour climate and fatigue (r=-0.328, p<0.05). Having a protected post-call day off, and having either the Program Director, Chief Resident, or Senior Resident decide that a resident takes a post-call day off were all associated with higher CS scores. Conclusion: We found that the CS had good internal consistency and evidence of construct validity. An inverse relationship between CS score and fatigue suggests that the level of fatigue is higher among residents in programs where residents perceived that ACGME duty-hour compliance was less important.