Hi All,
I am a novice and do not have much experience with plants. In the office, we have multiple plants that are getting brown, and we are trying to find the reason. The light is adequate, and we water regularly. This is happening to all the plants in the office, and I am looking for some advice on what we need to do.

Hi
I have many plants at my workplace, I think they benefit from the lighting, which is typically brighter than in a home, and is on for about 14 hours for 4 days, and shorter for the other three, but there are windows and skylights as well.

Do you think your lighting compares to this?

I'll make a guess that your plants are kept a little wetter than needed. Plants use less water in lower light places with almost no air movement. At my workplace, I water once a week at best. Most of my plants are happy. Peace lilies get too dry at that rate.

They may be in a dish or cache pot. Use caution, allow only a little overflow, don't leave them in a pool thinking they will just use as needed.

There may be other problems if they've been in the same pots for years.

I wonder if it may be related to a watering issue? Do you know how many employees might be watering the office plants? There should be an understanding that just one (or possibly two) people take the responsibility of plant care or you may end up having numerous people thinking that the plants need to be watered.

I've been retired for quite a few years now but when I worked I had lots of my own personal plants in my office and the company I worked for had a rental plant company that supplied plants to the President and VP's offices, as well as the areas just outside of their offices and the front lobby of the building. There were a few times over the years that I had to stop someone who would be in the building to water, fertilize, or change out the "company" plants because they were trying to water and fertilize mine as well, thinking that they were part of the rental group. There was also a time when I was away for two weeks and I told the temp who was filling in that I'd watered all of the plants well and they wouldn't need anything until I returned but she told me upon my return that she thought they looked thirsty so she had watered them but that she'd only watered once or twice each week! Another time a coworker came in to bring me paperwork and on his way out, I watched him stop and pour his coffee into one of my plants; he thought he was helping. It's sometimes difficult to insure that office plants aren't receiving "care" from numerous other employees.

Thank you @sallyg and @plantladylin. Your comments are very helpful. There are only two people in the office and we water once a week or so.
Do you suggest anyways to know whether we are over watering?
The lighting is good. We have floor to ceiling windows. There are blinds on the windows, but we rotate them open to allow for maximum lighting.

I am wondering, can it be the air in the office (we have been in the office for around 7 months and this happened to over 6 plants of different types). My other question, would using filtered water versus tap water help?
Thank you a lot for your help.

plants_novice
I also suspect over watering, possibly combined with anaerobic sludge at the bottom of the pots. When was the last time they were repotted and what kind of potting mix was used? What kind of fertilizer do you use and how often? Both pots have drainage holes, right?

Also, could we get more pictures of the first plant (is that an epipremnum aureum, commonly called pothos?) showing the whole plant, especially the upper leaves? The new growth that I can see in that photo appears quite light-starved. Unless your plants are close to your floor to ceiling windows, they are getting less light than you might think. Indoor light intensity drops off quite a bit with every foot from the windows. That big yellow leaf on the front bottom could just be normal attrition.

Hi @NMoasis,
Thank you for your response.
I will try to get photos, but I am not there today. They are not very close to the windows (around 10 feet away for the second one).
To answer your question, they have not been repotted. We literally bought the second around a month a go. We are not using fertilizers and we had a smaller one that did not have drainage holes, but still had the same issue. Based on the responses, it seems to be mostly a lighting issue, and we need to monitor the watering more.

Are there any fixes in your opinion?

I think you're on the right track — more light, less water. Plus they need to be fed regularly. Choose a liquid houseplant fert or just regular Miracle Gro and use according to instructions, never stronger than recommended. Do not allow the pots to sit in water. Really, if you can manage at work, the most effective watering method is over a sink or outdoors where you can fully saturate the pot so that water runs out of the bottom; allow it to finish draining before replacing it to saucer or cache pot. That gets cumbersome with larger plants. At least try to do it every couple of months to wash out salt residues.

Thank you @NMoasis!

You're welcome. When the weather warms, check back with us for repotting assistance. Better draining soil can make a huge difference in preventing over watering.