As part of our commitment to your workplace wellness programs, we recommend you encourage employees to watch more cat videos.
Without daily cat video viewing no company can honestly say it is committed to the good health of its workforce. And that’s a message you, as a recruiter and HR professional, need to carry into the executive suite. (Which ought to ensure your seat at the kids’ table forever.)
https://youtu.be/4tzhyfWHdLo?t=5s
That watching cat videos at work is good for productivity is not something we are making up. Could 6,795 people be wrong? That’s how many people Indiana University professor Jessica Gall Myrick surveyed, learning that watching cat videos elevates their mood and enhances their energy level. This is real science stuff, reported in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
No wonder the 2 million (MILLION!) cat videos on YouTube get more views each than any other YouTube category; an astounding 26 billion views last year. That’s way more than the Zoloft prescriptions last year.
Arm yourself with these results before you next wellness program presentation. Participants in Myrick’s study reported:
- They were more energetic and felt more positive after watching cat-related online media than before.
- They had fewer negative emotions, such as anxiety, annoyance, and sadness, after watching cat-related online media than before.
- They often view Internet cats at work or during studying.
- The pleasure they got from watching cat videos outweighed any guilt they felt about procrastinating.
The press release the university issued about Myrick’s research quotes her explaining the salubrious benefits of cat-video watching: “Even if they are watching cat videos on YouTube to procrastinate or while they should be working, the emotional payoff may actually help people take on tough tasks afterward.”
Classification Settlement Strips Employer of $6 Million
The owner of three strip clubs is paying millions to some 4,700 women who worked as independent contractors at the clubs over a six-year period.
Even though the clubs schedule their hours, require them to distribute a portion of their tips, and have other rules and policies, none of the girls got paid. This federal class action case, brought in south Florida, didn’t make it to trial, but in several states where similar stripper cases have, the courts have been fairly consistent in finding the workers are employees and covered by FLSA.
(You getting the puns?)
Where the cases get settled, clubs have been paying big. A New York club paid $15 million to settle one case.
The Houston law firm that sued on behalf of the dancers says it has more than 10 of these cases, and more are out there.
And for the record, this isn’t just a women’s issue. Last month a federal court in Georgia ruled that the male strippers at Swinging Richards were employees, not contractors, and had to be paid minimum wage. On the one hand, it was a victory for the guys. On the other, the judge kind of slapped them by ruling that the evidence about their dance skills “establishes that little creativity is required to be a dancer at the Club.”