Who doesn’t appreciate a little greenery around the office? It helps make your work space feel cozier and adds personality to what might otherwise be a bland and beige office space. What if adding a little life to desks, offices, and your overall office design could revivify your productivity?
Whether you’re incorporating a few ficus plants into your décor or creating a full-fledged garden, studies clearly show the benefits of plants in an office, and the Evolutyz team has taken these findings to heart.
When people started moving from rural areas to big cities, there was a considerable loss of green spaces. Cities like New York grew and expanded with some public parkland in mind, but few U.S. cities live up to the greenspaces available in Singapore or Sydney. Even if the cities or suburbs themselves had tree-and-shrub-filled parks nearby, large chunks of the average person’s day were spent indoors within rooms that few would describe as lush or verdant.
Nowadays, more offices aspire to incorporate indoor plants or even courtyards to liven up where employees spend their working hours. For example, Amazon’s Seattle offices created three glass domes, housing over 40,000 plants, where its team can meet, work, or relax. WeWork designs each of its coworking spaces to contain plants and vegetation, making every sq. ft. of space more appealing.
Why the change? A growing number of studies show just how plant life around the office can help to boost morale and productivity through the release of oxygen and natural calming effects.
Your colleagues might need a little green when they’re feeling blue. Studies in Denmark find that young people with the least amount of exposure to green space in their adolescent lives had as much as a 55% increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, or substance abuse later in life. But even those deprived of plentiful plant life growing up can get some psychological benefits here and now.
Case in point: Japanese workers were studied to see if being surrounded by office plants made a difference in their overall mood and stress levels. In the experiment, both the control and test group took three-minute breaks over the course of a trial period and their moods were measured. The group that re-centered around or even cared for plants was better equipped to handle psychological or physical stress, according to the results.
In the past, companies assumed that clean and sparse offices and workspaces were ideal for productivity. Now, some real-world experiments suggest that teams can achieve greater output with some plants around them.
Two commercial offices in the U.K. and the Netherlands weighed whether spartan offices or those furnished with vegetation cultivated greater productivity. The greener offices had 15% higher productivity. Even 40 seconds staring at green roofs or plants can refresh productivity.
Having seen the benefits of plants in the office on overall wellbeing, our leadership team has been passionate about promoting this custom, whether our employees are in the office or working from home.
One we’ve done that is to promote a competition encouraging our employees and consultants to exercise their green thumb. During the first half of June, our team will be growing gardens in their workspaces. Their vegetation can vary from flowers and succulents to cacti or even spices, as long as they document the fruits of their labor with high-resolution images.
On June 14th, we’ll review all of the submissions and give one of our team members an Amazon gift card. In the meantime, they’ll be creating spaces where they’ll consistently deliver their best work and minimize their stress.
Whether your team lives in a big city or the suburbs, staring a garden allows them to commune with nature and practice habits that require focus and attention. This can boost their mood, giving them a sense of personal satisfaction, higher energy, and greater self-assurance. When your employees are at their best, you’ll breathe a sigh of relief as they help your business achieve new heights.
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