The Benefits of Plants in the Workplace

Looking for a quick and inexpensive way to spruce up your office, which will pay big dividends for you and your team? Perhaps consider adding a couple of potted plants to your work environment. It’s a simple solution with a host of added benefits. Here are just a few.

Stress Reduction/Productivity

Human beings, whether working in a traditional office or not, are natural beings and experience a draw to nature and outdoor spaces referred to in the design industry as “biophilia”. Numerous studies have shown that adding plants to a workspace, bringing the outdoors indoors, can help foster this natural inclination and help employees feel more connected to nature, which in turn helps to reduce stress and increase productivity. What’s more, research suggests the color green has a calming effect on people, compounding the aesthetic value plants can add to your office.

Air Quality

It’s no secret that plants can help improve air quality, wherever they are. By bringing them into your workspace you can put them to work for the benefit of your employees. Plants not only add more oxygen to their surroundings, but they can also absorb and filter out potentially harmful naturally occurring organic compounds in the air, such as formaldehyde and benzene. Plants also add additional humidity to your office, helping to stabilize the temperature and shouldering some of the HVAC load.

Noise Reduction

An added bonus for plants in a crowded office environment that many would not think of is noise reduction. And no, it’s not just because plants don’t make any noise themselves. In fact, they’ll do you one better and help eliminate noise that has a tendency to bounce around a space. Traditional office spaces have lots of hard, flat surfaces which cause ambient sound to reflect off and bounce around the space. The loose, water filled foliage of an office plant is the perfect solution to grab that additional noise as it bounces around the space and remove it from the environment completely.

More Attractive Offices

While it may be obvious, it’s still worth mentioning that plants simply make a space look more appealing. They make a space look alive and colorful, helping to break up an otherwise sterile looking space. But it’s not just their natural beauty that you can use to your advantage, you can use them as makeshift dividers, to hide cabling, or alter the flow of ambient light in a space. Furthermore, creating an overall more appealing work environment in these ways can also help you attract new talent.