A room for testing sex toys – the Berlin-based Lovehoney Group offers its employees unique comfort at work.
Lovehoney Group, a sex toy company, is using an unusual way to give its employees some time off. As the “Tagesspiegel” reports, there is a room in the Berlin office building where employees can test sex toys for durability and flexibility.
With a team of 900 employees worldwide and 150 employees at the headquarters in Berlin-Friedrichshain, the Lovehoney Group is considered the market leader in the field of “sexual wellness”. The company has achieved particular fame through the “Womanizer”, a sex toy that, according to the promises of the inventor, Michael Lenke, “will help every woman to orgasm”. Ten million products have already been sold since its market launch in 2014.
The Lovehoney Group appears to be largely spared from the shortage of skilled workers in other industries. This is not least thanks to the company’s unique working environment. In addition to amenities such as a beauty room where employees can get their hair cut once a week, the Lovehoney Group offers its employees the opportunity to participate in the development of its products.
This is where the so-called “masturbation room” comes into play. This is a small room where employees can test products themselves on a voluntary basis. “We don’t find out what the employees do there,” says the company’s own sexologist Elisabeth Neumann to the “Tagesspiegel” and emphasizes the clear boundaries that are set in the company. “Our everyday work is not sexualized at all.”
According to a product tester from the Lovehoney Group, the masturbation room is more of an emergency solution when “something needs to be checked quickly.” She tells the “Tagesspiegel”: “As a rule, I take a product home and try it out there.”
The online giant Amazon recently tried a different way to make everyday working life more pleasant for its employees – which was met with mixed reactions. “Vice” reports on the so-called “ZenBooths” or “Mindful Practice Rooms” that were introduced as part of the “WorkingWell” program to give employees moments of relaxation.
These small cubicles in the middle of busy warehouses are designed to give employees the opportunity to access mental wellness materials and mindfulness exercises via computer. “I wanted to create a space that offers calm,” said the inventor of the ZenBooths in a now-deleted video, according to Vice. “The ZenBooth is an interactive kiosk where you can navigate an archive of mental health practices and recharge your inner battery.”
Critics see this metaphor as a problem because it is in stark contrast to people’s actual needs. Additionally, Amazon’s efforts to support its warehouse workers seemed to many like an attempt to improve the company’s tarnished image.
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