Future of Work Decision-Making & Analytics
WELLBEING AT WORK AND PRODUCTIVITY
WAKE UP TO THE BENEFITS OF POWER NAPS
skilled candidates choosing one organisation over another. A recent report by the consulting company Oliver Wyman found that 28 per cent of Generation Z workers – those born after 1997 – seek out benefits that help them cope with stress. These include massage chairs, meditation rooms, and sleep pods in the office. Yet the idea of ‘sleeping on the job’ remains anathema and only a few companies have begun building required before employers are willing to change the habits of a lifetime. That is exactly what we set out to provide with our study. Traditionally, researchers have confined their work within two key parameters, exploring how night-time sleep impacts individuals in developed economies. Very little research has examined how sleep deprivation affects those in low-wage countries or the impact of short daytime naps. Established research has almost exclusively taken place in sleep labs, rather than looking at experiences in people’s day-to-day environments. To address that, we looked naps into the working day. Clearly, more evidence is
at a group of about 450 adults in Chennai, India. We used actigraphs – devices that measure sleep-wake cycles – to measure their sleep at home. We found that low-income workers spent eight hours in bed, but slept for just 5.5 hours per night. The sleep they did have was poor quality and extremely interrupted, which was comparable to those in high-income countries with disorders such as sleep apnoea or insomnia. In order to understand the relationship between sleep and real workplace outcomes, we invited these individuals to work for three weeks in an office environment that focused on data-entry work. Over these weeks, we offered a series of interventions to the workers to test the relationship between their sleep and cognition, productivity and labour supply, decision-making, and wellbeing. We were particularly interested in whether improving sleep beyond the poor levels at baseline would improve day-to-day outcomes in the workplace. To test this, some participants were given sleep masks, fans, or mattresses to improve their environment, as well as advice on the benefits of good-quality sleep and better sleep hygiene. Some were also offered financial incentives and promised payment for extra sleep that was tracked on actigraphs. Finally, one group of employees was offered a 30-minute afternoon nap in a comfortable and quiet environment. Our night-time interventions increased the length of sleep by 27 minutes, but the extra rest did not improve workers’ cognition, productivity, decision-making or wellbeing. It also led to a slight reduction in labour supply, as people came
TO THE CORE
1. Afternoon naps improved workers’ cognition, decision- making, and wellbeing. They were also 2.3 per cent more productive over the course of the day, despite being available for less time. 2. Allowing daytime naps increased productivity as much as a 50 per cent pay rise would. 3. Companies can experiment with naps at relatively low costs by introducing soundproof sleep pods and comparing the performance of two groups of workers over time. 4. Encouraging staff working from home to carve out time for a power nap could also pay off.
by Mattie Toma
J ust outside Valencia lies a small Spanish town called Ador, where the siesta remains sacrosanct. In 2015, the town’s mayor passed a law forcing all businesses to close between 2pm and 5pm, banning ball games, and generally requiring noise to be kept to a minimum. Ador is an anomaly. Elsewhere, the traditional afternoon nap has become an anachronism, as foreign to most Spaniards as it is to tourists. Yet this sleepy Spanish town may be onto something. Sleep science has progressed rapidly in recent years, with lab experiments confirming what many already suspected – that insufficient sleep can adversely affect cognitive function and mental health. Bosses would do well to heed the warning. Wellbeing at work has become big business and can be the difference between
Warwick Business School | wbs.ac.uk
wbs.ac.uk | Warwick Business School
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