5 Reasons You Need More Plants in Your Office (and Which Ones You Should Buy)
Need another reason to justify your next plant purchase? We’ve got your back.
These past few years it feels like everyone has become botanists with ivy and monstera exploding from their homes. After the COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, there’s been a big focus on wellbeing and how our spaces can improve it.
This doesn’t stop when we get to work. Whether it’s home offices, coworking spaces or traditional offices, your people need to enjoy spending time there. And plants can help.
They reduce stress
A study found that those who have indoor plants in their offices showed an overall 6% decrease in stress levels. It also more specifically found that these office employees showed:
a 30% reduction in confusion
a 37% reduction in tension/anxiety
a 4.5% increase in vigour
a 38% reduction in fatigue
a 58% reduction in depression/dejection
a 44% reduction in anger/hostility
Who knew plants could make you less angry?! In an office space, these benefits can only be a good thing. Having plants throughout your workspace can keep everyone cool, calm and collected — and help reduce any workplace stress that may arise.
They keep people healthy
Office plants are not only stress relievers, they also keep people healthy in other ways as well. Having office plants at desks can increase employee wellbeing by 15%.
Some say that indoor plants in the office are not air-purifying and don't necessarily contribute to improving air pollution, while others claim that certain plants can draw out toxins like benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde from the air.
What is sure, however, is having indoor office plants decreases the amount of sick leave and sick days people take — we see that as a win-win. Greenery also means fewer reports of fatigue, concentration problems and nose and eye irritation.
Office plants also keep work environments safe from having sick building syndrome, which keeps your people happy and healthy.
The health benefits and wellbeing benefits of indoor plants on employees are clear, it leaves people and workspaces feeling better, both in terms of physical health and mental health.
They increase productivity
Another benefit of plants in the office is an increase in productivity. If each employee in the office can see a houseplant from their desk, a study found that their productivity increased by 15% during the workday. Happy, hard workers — what more could you ask for?
Peoples’ productivity increases when they are engaged with their working environment. Having indoor greenery allows employees to feel responsible and engaged with something in their workplace, which in turn increases their efficiency and productivity in the office.
They reduce noise
Having plants in the corners of your workplace can reduce extraneous office noise and minimise distractions.
This is particularly good news for large coworking spaces or office floors with otherwise little sound absorption methods and high noise levels. Incorporating larger potted plants in corners of the workplace design can really help keep everyone focused and thriving in a productive environment.
They allow creativity to thrive
Office greenery is said to boost creativity because green leaves, fun colours and exciting smells from plants have been shown to have psychological effects on people's productivity, creativity and motivation.
All office spaces could use a creativity boost, so look for some indoor plants to have on desks that will stimulate the senses and benefit everyone in the workspace. Look for plants with pleasing scents and lots of colours in order to maximise people's creativity.
Great Indoor Plants to Try in Your Office
We’ve all got a plant graveyard somewhere in our homes that we’re ashamed of. So one thing we can’t guarantee is that everyone in the office will have a green thumb. Make sure you get some plants that can withstand a bit of neglect. That way if all goes wrong, at least you'll still have some friends to brighten up your workplace!
Peace Lilies
Peace Lilies are one of the most popular indoor plants. They are beautiful, with deep green leaves and bright white blooms. They enjoy medium to low light and thrive when they are slightly underwatered. It's because of this that they're a perfect houseplant. They like to be forgotten about a little bit.
Look out though, Lilies can be toxic to cats. So if your office is pet-friendly, be sure to do some research before buying plants they could potentially get into.
Other hard-to-kill plants include:
ZZ plant ( Zamioculcas Zamiifolia )
Snake Plant (Dracaena trifasicata or Sansevieria trifasicata)
Lucky Bamboo
Aloe Plants (or other succulents)
Air Plants
Monstera
Monstera has become the A-list celeb of the indoor plant world (you might know it as the swiss cheese plant). Because of this, finding one may set you back a pretty penny. However, it is for good reason. Monstera plants can grow and fill a space in gorgeous ways. It would be the perfect plant for noise reduction and would benefit any environment with its presence.
Other great indoor plants (if you’re looking on the larger side) that can help with noise reduction and beautifying your space are:
Ficus Benjamina
Chamaedorea Elegans
Rubber Plant
Our other favourite green friends are the Money Plant (Jade Plant), Chinese Evergreen (Aglaonema) and the Spider Plant for extra dangling glamour. And you can’t go wrong with something like a Philodendron, Pothos, English Ivy or an African Violet.
The benefits are clear, office plants keep your office happy and healthy. And now that you have a list of greenery to seek out, why not test out your office's green thumb and adopt some plants to a good home?
All sounding too much?
If you want all the guesswork taken out of office design and excellent place-curation, come and chat to us about one of our spaces. We’ve got great spaces to suit your needs, free tea and (good) coffee and dogs on demand — oh, and a ridiculous amount of plants everywhere.