To ensure that all employees are contributing their fair share to the bottom line, many businesses are utilizing incompetence-sniffing dogs to identify those not making the grade.
“Some breeds possess an innate ability to sniff out incompetence,” says Mel Tramell, CEO of ScentsAbility, which deploys trained terriers, shepherds, and poodles at over 200 US companies. The animals can detect 112 different characteristics – including laziness, procrastination, sloth, lack of consensus-building skills, and the inability to formulate a vision.
Tramell, a former investment banker, founded the company in 2016. He was inspired when a Cocker Spaniel named Pudgy was brought to his bank for “Take Your Dog to Work Day” – and then proceeded to sniff out an accountant who was utilizing outdated tax codes. “Pudgy saved us millions in potential penalties,” says Tramell. Inspired, he quit his job a week later, purchased five Wheaton Terriers, and launched the business.
One of his clients, Sligo Diversification of Decatur, Illinois, has kept two Pimlico Poodles on site for the past six months. The company has already terminated eight employees and productivity has increased by 30 percent. “We had a guy in accounts payable who was magnifying when he should have been solidifying,” says George Hardwick, Sligo’s Chief Competence Officer. “He fooled us for five years, but he didn’t fool the poodles!” Also sniffed out was Sligo’s VP of Finance, who during follow-up questioning admitted he didn’t know what a ledger was.
The technique has its critics. In Reno, a medical equipment salesman got his firing reversed by a judge when he proved the dog smelled a chicken sandwich he’d left in his pocket. Tramell acknowledges there may be some glitches, but says that overall the program has been a huge success.
“Just the presence of these dogs is enough to make people work smarter,” he says. “Nobody wants to be the guy who got eliminated by a Beagle.”
