The hybrid workspace has emerged as a solution to combine on-site interaction with home working. In offices around the globe, collaboration zones and social areas are replacing rows of desks to facilitate teamwork and face to face connections. Along with meeting booths, huddle spaces and café style areas, plants have emerged as a key feature of hybrid office design.

Our desire to be surrounded by greenery was never more apparent than during lockdown. Leaving loads of people plant obsessed. Eager to connect with nature – a concept now recognised as biophilia. The post pandemic proliferation of office plants is therefore not surprising, helping to lure staff from the comfort of their living rooms back to work.

However, simply installing the odd desk plant might not cut the mustard with your employees. It needn’t be an urban jungle though.

We’ve pulled together 5 creative ways to incorporate greenery at work to entice your team members back.

Shelving

A shelving unit filled with plants is a great way to divide your workplace and create privacy in an open plan space. A mixture of succulents and trailing plants are perfect for creating a unique display which adds variety and vitality. What’s more, the sound absorption properties of plants allow individual workers to continue undisturbed when teams are collaborating.

Green Walls

A green wall is a superb way to add impact to a hybrid office and it’s a great space saver if the available floor plan is unable to accommodate planters. Pick a key location which maximises visibility and it will bring life to your indoor environment, satisfying the innate need us humans possess to connect with nature. With inbuilt irrigation systems, the wall will mature and flourish into a natural work of art.

Trees and Specimen Plants

If you’ve a bit of space think, about using a tree or large specimen plant as a focal point to draw people in. Punctuating abundant open space with touch down features creates interest and will have people yearning to come into the office. A green canopy at a meeting desk or seating area will entice people to congregate and converse. What’s more, it’s been proven that plants can inspire creativity, so the results could be fascinating.

Cabinet Tops

Hot desking is a common occurrence in the hybrid office, with locker cabinets often incorporated for employees to stow possessions. Installing luscious greenery on cabinet tops is proving a popular method of adding plants to the hybrid office to entice staff to work away from home. Using plants in this fashion brings multiple benefits: saves space, creates divisions, absorbs sound between areas and brings with it all the psychological and physical benefits of plants that have been well documented in recent years.

Moveable Planters

As office staff float in and out, the need for flexibility of your indoor space is key, so why not use plants to chop and change collaboration zones. Moveable dividers and planters can be shifted about to suit the requirement of the day in terms of meetings or events, whilst bringing that natural element to the workspace your team members are craving.