by Brianna Crandall — September 17, 2014—Enriching a “lean,” space-efficient office with plants could increase productivity by 15 percent, according to what is called the first field study of its kind, the results of which were just released by researchers from Cardiff University, the University of Exeter, and universities in The Netherlands and Australia.
The team examined the impact of “lean” and “green” offices on staff’s perceptions of air quality, concentration, and workplace satisfaction. After placing plants in sparsely furnished, “lean” workspaces, the researchers monitored productivity levels over subsequent months in two large commercial offices in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands.
The research showed plants in the office significantly increased workplace satisfaction, self-reported levels of concentration, and perceived air quality.
Current principles of “lean” office management increasingly call for workspaces to be stripped of extraneous decorations so that they can flexibly accommodate changing numbers of people and different office functions within the same area. Yet this practice is at odds with evidence from this research that office workers’ quality of life can be enriched by office landscaping that involves the use of plants that have no formal work-related function, points out the report.
Lead researcher Marlon Nieuwenhuis, from the Cardiff University School of Psychology, said, “Our research suggests that investing in landscaping the office with plants will pay off through an increase in office workers’ quality of life and productivity. Although previous laboratory research pointed in this direction, our research is, to our knowledge, the first to examine this in real offices, showing benefits over the long term. It directly challenges the widely accepted business philosophy that a lean office with clean desks is more productive.”
Analyses into the reasons why plants are beneficial suggests that a green office increases employees’ work engagement by making them more physically, cognitively, and emotionally involved in their work, offers the report.
Co-author Dr. Craig Knight, from the University of Exeter, said, “Psychologically manipulating real workplaces and real jobs adds new depth to our understanding of what is right and what is wrong with existing workspace design and management. We are now developing a template for a genuinely smart office.”
Professor Alex Haslam, from The University of Queensland’s School of Psychology, who also co-authored the study, added, “The ‘lean’ philosophy has been influential across a wide range of organizational domains. Our research questions this widespread conviction that less is more. Sometimes less is just less.”
The Relative Benefits of Green Versus Lean Office Space: Three Field Experiments, was published September 1 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
