Siestas turn a profit
There’s little that’s more Spanish than the afternoon siesta. As the midday sun goes up, businesses in smalltown Spain pull down their shutters for a traditional nap.
In big urban centres, modern business trends have ended that habit, leaving many Spaniards who work long hours exhausted.
Now, Maria Estrella Jorro de Inza has found a way to bring back the siesta, making money while her countrymen nap. Bankers, lawyers and consultants catch up on their sleep at Siesta and Go — Madrid’s first nap bar, located in Azca, in the heart of the city’s financial district. The concept is simple: for just €14 (about R209) an hour, you get to unwind and take a power nap in a private bedroom before heading back to work.
“It’s funny that we’re known for the siesta, but we haven’t been professional about it,” said De Inza, the nap bar’s founder. “We get a lot of men in suits who just want to relax and women wanting to take their heels off. Lunch break is the busiest time.”
The idea, of course, is not original. De Inza, 32, came upon it on a trip to Tokyo.
The Japanese capital, famous for its shortstay options for space-starved citizens such as “capsule hotels”, also has “nap cafes”. These allow clients to have a short snooze during the day — a practice some Japanese claim has enormous health benefits.
It struck De Inza that the Japanese offer fitted nicely with her own country’s traditions. The Spanish workday is often divided into blocks, with lunch breaks that can drag on for more than two hours, meetings that run into the late afternoon and days that end late into the night.
Spaniards racked up 1 695 hours at work on average last year, beating neighbouring Germany and France, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Only Italy and Portugal pulled longer hours among the main euro-area economies. That has left Spaniards who like to stay out late stuck in a form of permanent jet lag, a feeling that hasn’t been helped by late dictator Francisco Franco’s decision to move the clock forward an hour in 1940 in line with allies Germany and Italy. The daily grind of Spaniards trails the sun, which often translates into late dinners and less sleep.
“When Europe sleeps, Spain is still awake; we’re in the wrong time zone, the whole country runs late and the corporate culture is rigid,” said Nuria Chinchilla, a professor in people management. Workers were exhausted because shifts were too long, she said. “It’s about putting in long hours and not leaving until your boss has left the office.”
It made workers less productive and could be linked to the country’s low birth rate, “because Spaniards simply don’t have the time or energy once the workday is done”, she said.