The World of Work: Patch

Big Ken. Howard. Suzie. Venus. Florence. Penny. Rapunzel.

These are just some of the plant names Patch, a London-based plant provider, offers for the ‘less experienced gardeners’ and offices nationwide. 

“Patch names its plants after humans to simplify the horticultural jargon and to help the new urban gardener relate to the products and not have to learn Latin,” Phil Brian, Patch’s Finance Lead says. 

“My favourite plant has to be Penny, a Chinese Money plant. It’s easy to take care of and grows lots of little pups that you can propagate that you can give to your friends or family, or just annoy your partner with in the house by having 50 plants.”

Bringing the outside world into the office

Indoor courtyards, plants and gardens have numerous benefits for an office workspace, and it’s a lot more than just aesthetics. 

The days of grey carpets and boxed-off cubicles are over. More and more companies — especially after numerous lockdowns — are realising the importance of having an inviting and almost at-home feeling office. And the best way to step up an office space is… Plants. 

It’s also been proven that working in a greener space increases focus and productivity. 

How does Patch use Pleo?

For Patch, it’s all about simplifying a tedious and laborious process. 

“One of the reasons we brought Pleo in was that it’s scalable, it’s easy to set up and use. We provide cards to most of our staff. We use Pleo for our expenses mostly and spend management, it just makes it a lot easier to have everything in one place.” 

In the office (that’s also buried in plants), almost every staff member has their own Pleo card. There’s never a worry from team members or the finance department about approvals because of their robust spending limits that you can see in real-time. 

“Our team can make decisions quickly and easily without having to get our approval, because our approval has already been given in the limits that we set. We can see what people are spending on, how many people still haven’t given in their receipts and you can also name and shame people at the end of the month if they haven’t handed in their receipts.” 

So, how would Patch describe Pleo in one word? “Simple.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.