Green space maintenance: all you need to know to maintain your company’s green spaces

A work environment connected to nature helps reduce absenteeism by 10%, according to an American study by the University of Oregon. Conducive to employees’ relaxation and comfort, it is now also a living space at the heart of current ecological concerns. The maintenance of green spaces and exteriors within a company is increasingly important for managers, in order to provide employees with a pleasant working environment that encourages personal fulfillment and professional development.

Why maintain your company’s green spaces?

The maintenance of green spaces, the creation of a garden, or the presence of plants outside contributes in more ways than one to improving company life.

To improve employee well-being at work

Above all, the presence of landscaped green spaces gives employees visual comfort. Being surrounded by nature has been proven to improve concentration. It can provide an escape where employees can recharge their batteries and calm their minds. Green is good for morale and helps you keep going, while the sight of a completely concrete and mineral environment makes for a gloomy atmosphere. Green spaces in companies have anti-stress properties. A walk in a leafy garden at break time reduces anxiety for employees, who can let go for a few minutes before returning to their desks with new ideas and perspectives. It acts as a decompression chamber that maintains employee motivation and contributes to increasing team efficiency and productivity.

To create a social bond

Providing welcoming green spaces helps to strengthen cohesion within the company. It allows employees to meet and interact in a pleasant setting during their breaks or lunchtime. They are therefore less inclined to have lunch offsite, which increases the time they spend together outside of a strictly professional context. Green roof terraces are increasingly popular with large companies, as they promote interaction and contribute to creating a shared company culture. They are also a valuable aesthetic asset for the image projected by the company.

To increase the company’s attractiveness

Developing green spaces and an attractive exterior reflects the image of a modern, engaging, and environmentally friendly company. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a good first impression! The maintenance of green spaces, the presence of plants or a company garden projects a positive image to your customers, partners or anyone else likely to have an appointment on your premises.

They also represent a source of attractiveness when recruiting potential candidates, as well as a source of employee retention and loyalty. In fact, the work environment, although not the first factor when choosing a workplace, is taking on increasing importance in candidates’ decisions.

This is particularly true since the health crisis, which has forced employees to work from home most of the time with the corresponding downsides (loneliness, monotony, poorly adapted work environment, lack of interaction with colleagues, etc.). Holding meetings in the open air or among exotic plants can be the answer to the current trend toward standardisation of the working world. All that is left to do is to ensure the efficiently organised development and maintenance of these green spaces.

How to maintain your company’s green spaces and exteriors

Pruning, hedge maintenance, lawn mowing, leaf collection: it takes a lot of work to keep green spaces in perfect condition.

Developing green spaces

The maintenance of your company’s green spaces and exteriors will depend on the development you have done beforehand. It is therefore important to determine the type of use intended upstream. You will have to choose whether to make it only an ornamental place to pass through, or to let employees use these green spaces on a daily basis, in particular during lunchtime.

Different types of planting will be required depending on whether or not you want to provide shading trees in the spaces employees use during their break time. You should also think about what outdoor furniture to purchase so that your employees can comfortably spend time in this leafy garden.

If you want to set up a garden with food plants where employees can pick seasonal fruits or vegetables themselves, the issue of sun exposure must be taken into account when planting. This will also require more maintenance and therefore costs to be factored in.

The different types of maintenance work of company green spaces

Maintenance of company green spaces and exteriors requires various services to preserve this bucolic working environment. They may include the following:

• Lawn mowing, grass collection, and green waste disposal;
• Plant maintenance, watering, repotting, etc.;
• Hedge trimming, mowing or clearing;
• Weeding and weed treatment;
• Lawn watering, maintenance or fertilisation;
• Tree pruning and trimming.

These tasks will require regular attention from professional landscapers in order to keep your green spaces in the best possible condition.

How to choose a landscaper for green space maintenance

Green space maintenance can sometimes be done internally by full-time employees or even directly by using a local organisation.  All the equipment necessary for company garden maintenance is available on Manutan’s website. However, most of the time you will need to hire professional landscapers. If the maintenance for your green space is limited to a few tasks on hedges and shrubs, a yearly visit from a hedge trimming company will be more than enough.

A lawn, on the other hand, will require a regular contract with a landscaper, with mowing every two weeks in summer to keep the lawn in good condition and prevent weeds from spreading. The landscaper can collect dead leaves at the same time.

Setting up automatic watering will help keep your lawn and plants healthy without having to call on the services of a professional landscaper too often.

When your green spaces are vast and varied, you will need to turn to professional multi-service landscapers. They will be in charge of pruning trees, arranging flower beds, mowing the lawn, collecting dead leaves and all garden maintenance work.

Why not involve your employees?

It’s quite possible to involve your employees in the creation and maintenance of green spaces on a voluntary basis. Whether or not they have a green thumb, they can take care of watering or looking after plants.

For those who so wish, planning time slots for weed control and clearing or organising occasional plant workshop days will be as useful for your company as it is beneficial for your teams’ well-being. This may involve planting trees, which will also be an additional asset within the framework of your CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) approach. Having plenty of garden and outdoor maintenance equipment will enable your budding gardeners to express all their talent and potential as landscapers.

Why not even plan the development of a communal vegetable garden or an urban farm, which can be maintained by volunteer employees. After all, gardening is great fun and conducive to social interaction between employees, with the most experienced providing advice to beginners.

For all your green space maintenance equipment visit www.manutan.co.uk