Should you tell your boss how much sleep you’re getting?
As companies start ‘sleep auditing’ their workforce, Maria Lally discovers how to incentivise staff to get more shut-eye
The phrase, “You snooze, you lose” could have been invented with the business world in mind. From Apple boss Tim Cook’s 5am starts to Barack Obama’s five-hours’-sleep-a-night boasts while in the Oval Office, burning the midnight oil and being the first at your desk has always been held in high regard in the workplace.
And it’s not just those in Silicon Valley and the White House (Obama’s replacement, President Trump, also prides himself on getting less than five hours a night) who aren’t sleeping enough. The National Sleep Foundation recently found the average British worker gets just six hours 49 minutes a night, and scientists at research group RAND Europe found the effects of poor sleep are costing the UK economy £40billion each year thanks, in part, to the 200,000 working days a year lost to absenteeism caused by lack of sleep.
In her new book, The Business of
Sleep, Vicki Culpin, a clinical psychologist and expert in sleep and memory, reminds us that sleep, or rather the lack of, has been directly implicated in some of the biggest man-made disasters in recent history, from Chernobyl to the space shuttle Challenger explosion – a chilling warning, given her assertion that “never before have significant percentages of working adults been so sleep-deprived”.
At a more insidious level, rather than keeping you at the top of your game at work, studies show that even mild sleep deprivation hinders your concentration, people skills and, ultimately, your mental health. There has been heightened business interest in sleep since António Horta Osório, chief executive of Lloyds bank, was signed off work with stress-related insomnia – he has said he did not sleep for five days as he battled to turn the bank around in 2011, leading him to check into the Priory with exhaustion.
In January, following research by Sainsbury’s showing that getting enough good sleep has the strongest association with happiness, Public Health England (PHE) issued guidance drawn up with employers’ organisation Business in the Community to encourage managers to consider “sleep audits” to see if their staff are getting proper rest, to be trained to spot signs of sleep deprivation, and to warn against sending non-urgent work emails out of hours.
Some companies have already woken up to the importance of the sleeping habits of their staff. Google – frequently top of the “best places to work” rankings, thanks to staff perks such as on-site childcare and chefs – has installed sleep pods in its offices to encourage staff to nap. Similar pods can be found springing up all over offices in Silicon Valley, New York and LA. Nike’s US headquarters has rooms designed for staff to sleep or meditate, and other companies, Proctor & Gamble included, are investing in lighting systems that regulate the sleep hormone melatonin.
And for staff at US insurance group Aetna, it literally pays to sleep. To avoid sleep deprivation affecting performance, the company invites workers to sign up to a scheme that offers financial rewards for getting at least seven hours of sleep. There are no Big Brother cameras making sure staff aren’t pocketing their sleep bonuses while getting late nights but, “we’re not worried, it’s an honour system. We trust out staff,” says vice-president Kay Mooney.
So why the sea change? “There has been an exponential increase in firms asking for help in getting their staff to sleep better in the past two years,” says Guy Meadows, clinical director of The Sleep School, who runs sleep courses for professionals (thesleepschool.org/professional).
“Until recently, sleep was missing from work wellness programmes, which were more concerned with diet or exercise. But sleep is the most important wellness pillar of all – and can even help with the other two.
After all, studies show that when we get enough sleep we make better food choices and are more likely to have the willpower to exercise.
“We also know that sleep is the starting block of all cognitive function, from memory to concentration. But I don’t believe this new focus on sleep is solely driven by a desire to boost profits and to get more out of their employees. Rather, I believe it’s part of a larger focus on good positive mental health within the workplace. So many organisations now have a mental health agenda and they know there are rising levels of stress, depression and anxiety within the workplace. And these things are inextricably linked to sleep.” After all, a new study from totaljobs. co.uk last month found that 50per cent of British workers lose sleep due to work concerns, and one in four say that sleep deprivation affects the quality of their work. “The neurochemicals responsible for a good night’s sleep help manage our mood, so sleep is the canary down the mine as far as mental health is concerned,” says Meadows. “It’s an early warning sign that our mental health might be declining. Poor sleep can often turn up before depression and anxiety, so it’s this brilliant little indicator. “What we teach companies is that sleep plays a really important role in managing our mood. We know the stresses from a bad day are replayed in the brain during the rapid eye movement cycle of sleep, when your stress hormones are switched off. This allows your brain to process stress in a neutral setting. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you lose these emotion-diffusing benefits. So you wake up still processing the stress from the day before. And the effects are accumulative.”
Sleep also helps preserve your prefrontal cortex, which regulates your emotional sensors: “When we’re well rested, how we perceive ourselves and the world around us is more positive. We get along better with people, and we’re willing and able to negotiate, collaborate and interact with others. The opposite happens when we don’t sleep enough – the prefrontal cortex part of our brain becomes more reactionary, which leads to more risk-taking behaviour, and we adopt a fight or flight response to life and become more anxious. So if you’re a boss, you have a vested interest in having well-slept staff, not just to help prevent deep-seated mental health issues but to improve the overall mood of your team. And, of course, good sleep also improves focus, attention, concentration, creativity and our ability to learn and focus.”
While UK companies haven’t quite caught up with the US in terms of sleep pods and nap rooms, change is afoot. Peter Simpson, chief executive of Anglian Water, which has put PHE’S guidance into practice – sharing advice on sleeping well with staff, such as having a fixed bedtime and not checking emails or watching TV in bed – said it had improved productivity, customer service and decision-making.
Accountancy giant Deloitte now offers staff relaxation rooms and the chance to go on sleep training courses, led by Dr John Briffa, author of A Great
Day at the Office. “The ‘sleep is for wimps’ mantra has gone. In its place is a culture of senior staff significantly more aware of the benefits of sleep,” he says. “The pressures of corporate life ramps up year on year, but firms like Deloitte realise that its people are its asset. Many companies today don’t make actual products to sell. So their staff and the service they provide are their ‘product’ and they’re realising they need to support them to become well, happy and rested. And data suggests focusing on sleep is a worthwhile endeavour because it’s the starting block of good health, and the management around it is free and fairly simple. Sleep was once seen as a luxury item, the bottom of the priority list and the thing that could be squeezed out to fit more work in. But rather than sleep not being very productive, it is in fact key to productivity.”
Of course, not all companies are on board, as yet. “Things are slowly getting better, but the workplace still has a lot to do,” says Meadows. “It’s the most obvious place to cause sleeplessness, thanks to a culture of long working hours, travel, shift work and pressure. But employers should remember that sleep is the most crucial wellness pillar. A few years back it was all about super-foods being the best thing for your health, now it’s about being a super-sleeper. And if you can help your employees become one, your business will thank you for it.”
You snooze you lose? More like you snooze, you win.
‘Never before have so many working adults been so sleepdeprived’