In a cramped city like Tokyo, where owning a pet is a luxury and most apartments have strict no-pets policies, it’s hard for cat lovers to spend quality time with their favorite animals. In response, cat cafés have cropped up all over the city, where people get to sip delicious beverages while petting a purring kitty. But even that doesn’t come close to having a cat in your own home, because the time spent with the furry creatures is quite limited.

That’s why a Japanese company has come up with a great idea to get its employees to interact with pets more often – a cat-populated workplace! The offices of Ferray Corporation, an internet solutions business, is filled with nine lovable rescued cats that are allowed to roam freely all through the day. The cats are so adorable that employees of Ferray are reporting considerably lowered stress levels.

Of course,letting cats run free in a workplace can have unexpected consequences, and the Ferray office is no exception. The felines are regularly up to no good – they switch off computers, chew on LAN cables, scratch the walls, tear up papers, and mess up code by walking on keyboards. And when clients visit the premises, the purring felines have the bad habit of going through their bags or sleeping on meeting tables.

Despite these annoyances, employees say they aren’t bothered by the cats one bit. It seems that office communication has increased dramatically, since everybody just can’t seem to stop talking about the cats. It’s a topic that brings employees together and lowers everyone’s stress. As you can imagine, it’s next to impossible to be upset when there’s a cute cat hanging out nearby.

Not only does the company have nine cats, but every single day is Bring Your Pet to Work Day. Employees are encouraged to bring their own pets into the office. And if they don’t have a pet of their own, the company actually offers a 5,000 yen ($42) per month ‘cat bonus’ to anyone who is willing to adopt a cat.

Interestingly, Ferray isn’t the only office in Tokyo with bizarre pet policies. Mars Japan Limited, a company that specializes in pet supplies, also encourages employees to bring their pets to work. It also gives benefits such as time off, condolence pay and covering funeral costs in case of the unfortunate death of a pet.

Ferray actually admits that the most important quality that they look for in job candidates is a love of cats! Of course, they ask for basic skills and experience too, but if you don’t love animals, you have little chance of getting hired.

Source: RocketNews24