Businessman's best friend

Payroll Solutions Group chief brings pets to contribute to fun environment

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Some companies, over time, just go to the dogs. In the case of one North Las Vegas business, it went to the dogs straight away.

Payroll Solutions Group, 3985 W. Cheyenne Ave., is a business providing human resources and other administrative services to small- and medium-sized companies.

After opening in 1998, it moved to the Cheyenne location in 2002, said founder and CEO Howard Winters, and it came with its own in-house vice presidents for morale: Jake and Ozzie.

Whenever Winters notifies the office that he's on his way in, said Sarah Riggs, director of first impressions, someone looks for the "doggie gate."

Jake and Ozzie are both full-blooded golden retrievers, and they, like having a director of first impressions, play a crucial role in Winters' determination that work ought to be fun. According to Riggs, they succeed at their assigned task.

"They have the run of the place," she said. "I think everyone likes them, and they're great stress relievers. How can you not feel better when you have one of their faces looking up at you from your lap? They're fantastic. They're so much fun."

"Jake grew up in the office," said Winters of the reddish female of the pair. "For her first two years, she was here every day. Jake started with us. She came to work, she had two or three accidents on the carpet, and that was it."

Ozzie, larger and light blonde, has the full face of a true field dog and a largely Canadian ancestry bulging with blue ribbons.

"Jake had been here so loyally for a year and a half that we decided he was overworked," Winters joked as the two dogs indicated their desire for attention on the part of some visitors to the office. "There were 11 pups in Ozzie's litter, and we got the pick. We got a real champion."

They take their work seriously, dashing off to hunt up their pals as soon as Winters brings them in the door and the doggie gate is put into place.

"As far as I know," said Riggs, "they've never gotten out."

Prominent in the lobby is a blue aquarium, and that marks another aspect of Winters' attitude toward work.

He holds to the Pike Place Fish Market "fish philosophy," which has spread out from its home in Seattle, Wash., and is being adopted by numerous companies around the country. The market produces its own videos and even runs workshops designed to explain its point of view.

At the fish market, employees put on a show for visitors, tourists and for themselves. Twenty-pound salmon are tossed from one stall to another. The fishmongers holler back and forth and keep up a running commentary as they make their way through the work day.

It's almost like a small-scale Las Vegas show with squid, salmon, crabs, octopus and other seafood offerings instead of showgirls, magicians, acrobats and drag queens.

"Most people just see the video from the market," Winters said of the philosophy. "We take it to new heights. The 150-gallon aquarium you see when you come in reminds every single employee every single day of the fish philosophy."

Winters said there are four fundamental aspects to the philosophy.

First, he said, "We have a powerful force available -- the power of choice." Anyone can decide what his or her attitude is going to be on any given day, he explained. "You choose. It is a choice. Even if you don't choose, that's a choice."

Second, he said, "Make this day someone's day." Every time a client, another employee, or just a member of the public at large has anything to do with an employee, "You are going to have an impression of what that experience is like."

The person may be refreshed by the encounter, may find it innocuous, or may be turned off. "Get positive energy out there," said Winters.

He said the third aspect is: "Be fully present."

"In today's society, that is a lost art," Winters said. "How often do we feel we really have someone's attention? The people right in front of you are the most important."

Finally, he said, "No matter where you work, you can have fun. You can turn things into fun. You can find ways to make mundane things fun. The guys at the fish market find ways to have fun. They throw fish around, they play to their audience, so they just have fun with what they're doing."

Winters is not the average CEO of an American service company. Born and raised near Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian traveled extensively through his native land -- "And yes," he added, "I do speak French." -- but developed a fascination with the country's southern neighbor.

At the University of Guelph, roughly 50 miles southwest of Toronto, he majored in U.S. history and admits to a fascination with places like Valley Forge, Pa., where George Washington kept alive the spark of the revolution during the grim winter of 1778.

Winters moved to the U.S. in 1991 and is working to acquire citizenship.

"I am more American than 99 percent of the Americans here," he said. "I do go back and visit Canada, as a tourist."

Besides the retrievers and the aquarium, his office is aswarm with depictions of elephants -- a large photo of a seated pachyderm, a herd in line across one of his bookshelves, solo elephants on his desk.

"They have many amazingly wonderful qualities," Winters said. They may be seen as symbols of good karma or good luck, he said. "Or if you want to take them as a symbol of my alignment with the Republican Party, then you can do that. You should see my office at home -- that's where the rest of them are."