If you're trying to increase productivity and efficiency among your employees, all you have to do is to put up some plants in the office, based on the recent study detailed in Reuters on Thursday, October 2.
A team of researchers from the United Kingdom conducted three experiments that prove employees-or humans-thrive better in a green office or environment than in a lean one.
According to one of the authors of the study, Craig Knight from University of Exeter, animals don't really thrive on lean spaces and that there's not enough evidence to suggest that this type of environment is effective.
Lean space, meanwhile, is based on the idea that the fewer items the employees interact, the more focused they become as there are fewer possible distractions.
Since there are not enough data to work with about lean versus green spaces, the team conducted 3 different experiments in real offices operating in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
During the first experiment, 67 people participated, 33 of whom worked at "green" desks, with a clear view of a pair of plants. The others had to work with a lean space. After 3 weeks of working in the same setup, the employees were then made to answer a questionnaire that assessed their views on work satisfaction, concentration, and quality of air. Those who worked in greens spaces fared better in these aspects, although those in the lean space also reported better work satisfaction, perhaps due to accidental access or view of the plants.
In the second experiment, the participants were still divided into two groups. However, unlike in the first study, they worked in separate floors. Only those who worked in the green space reported better work satisfaction. Nevertheless, the researchers believed that the nature of work made it quite difficult to properly evaluate productivity.
In the third study, participants who were grouped into two worked on certain tasks under a period of time. After the experiment was over, the researchers discovered the group in the green office had a higher productivity rate of 15%.
Adding plants can be a huge boost to an employee's psychology, not to mention they increase oxygen production.
The study is now published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.