Beyond ownership: How direct experience shapes employee perceptions of pet-friendly workplaces

Background : Pet-friendly workplaces (PFWs) are increasingly promoted as a strategy to support employee well-being and workplace culture, yet most research has focused on pet owners or employees evaluating hypothetical workplace scenarios. Far less is known about how perceptions differ between employees who have and have not directly experienced a PFW. Methods : Using a vetted sample of 195 full-time employees recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, this exploratory study examined perceptions of the benefits (e.g., mental well-being, physical activity, interpersonal functioning, and personal work performance), issues, and governance of PFWs, with pet ownership and prior PFW experience as focal variables. Group differences were examined with two-way factorial models crossing prior PFW experience and pet ownership, with ordinal-logistic and false-discovery-rate sensitivity analyses. Results : Employees generally viewed PFWs positively, with mental health and interpersonal benefits receiving the strongest support. Pet owners reported greater perceived mental, physical, and personal-work benefits than non-owners and viewed several workplace issues as less frequent. The study’s primary finding, however, concerned experience. Employees with prior PFW experience reported smaller perceived benefits, rated issues such as distraction and allergies as more frequent, and expressed stronger support for ongoing governance than employees without such experience. No significant experience × ownership interactions were detected. Across all groups, clear office rules emerged as the most important policy safeguard. Conclusions : Perceptions of PFWs are shaped not only by pet ownership but also by direct experience. Employees with prior PFW experience consistently reported more tempered views than those without it, raising the possibility that the literature’s generally favorable picture reflects anticipation as much as lived experience. Understanding PFWs, therefore, requires knowing who is being asked and whether they have actually experienced one.