Editor’s Note: Clairemont enthusiastically welcomes Jasmin Sessoms to our team! Follow this former beauty queen’s journey as she documents her first 30 days in a Raleigh PR agency.

Team meetings are typically stuffy and irritating. Everyone has suffered from meetings that have taken up far too much time and accomplished far too little. At Clairemont, that is not the case. Picture a round table discussion with around 30-plus years of PR experience combined and Jimmy Johns sandwiches. Perfection.

This morning we all sat down for a collaborative brainstorming session. New business, current clients and networking ideas were all on the agenda. Finding new clients is exciting for me. I look forward to the day where I will lead account projects.

Today, we had a very special member of the team with us in the meeting. Billy, Mrs. Hughen’s sweet dog and our CMO (chief motivational officer). Interestingly enough, Mrs. Hughens had a dog named PR when she was 10. As a dog lover myself, I couldn’t be happier to make his acquaintance.

Catching a glimpse of Billy’s tail wagging around the office isn’t just cute, studies show that dogs in the workplace could even save your life. According to the University of Virginia Commonwealth researchers, studies have shown that dogs in the workplace help workers to feel less stressed, as well as open the door for conversations that may not have occurred other times between co-workers.

The Centers for Disease Control have released statements about stress-reducing benefits. I think that allowing dogs in the workplace is a great idea. Billy resting his head on my lap for a rub made me feel warm.

I also think that having dogs in the office encourage creativity. Or maybe that’s coffee?

Either way, having Billy around makes the office a better place, and collaborative team meetings encourage collaborative learning. It doesn’t get any better than that.