Get a Well-Rested Workforce with Your Wellness Program

Do you get enough zzz’s? Odds are you—and your employees—probably don’t. But what’s the big deal with being a little drowsy at work? There are actually quite a few negative outcomes of sleep deprivation. There are also plenty of things you can do to make sure you have a well-rested workforce.

At Work

Some of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation are seen at the workplace. It’s estimated that fatigue-related production loss is close to $2,000. This is due to mistakes that are made because employees' minds are quite as sharp on fewer hours of sleep.

Similarly, when you don’t get enough sleep, it’s very easy to become tired and crabby. Workers in a bad mood don’t work well together. This lack of teamwork can also hurt your production levels.

Finally, it’s said that back-to-back shifts on 4-5 hours of sleep a night lead to characteristics similar to those of legal drunkenness! If you frown upon your employees coming to work under the influence, you should definitely encourage them to come to work well-rested, too.

In Your Body

Aside from production level issues, lack of sleep can cause a variety of physical health issues too. Perhaps the most common is that fatigued employees get sick more easily and more often because their bodies aren’t as equipped to fight off infections.

Sleep deprivation is also obviously linked with low awareness, leading to the detrimental mistakes we talked about earlier. It can also be attributed to higher risks of stroke, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, depression and heart disease. All of these things can spell disaster when they infect your workforce.

So you know your employees need sleep, but you can’t go home with them to make sure they follow curfew. What can you do?

Educate

One thing you can do is educate your workforce on the importance of sleep and the dangers of sleep deprivation. It’s important that they understand exactly what the issue is and why it relates to them. This can be done with office-wide memos, meetings, fliers or even more creative campaigns.

No matter what you use, try to relate the educational material to the needs of your workforce. For example, if most of your employees work remotely, fliers at the office probably won’t help much.

Schedule

Making a schedule cohesive with sleep patterns is something you can do to directly affect how much sleep your employees get.

• Avoid scheduling shifts longer than 12 hours
• Schedule night shift staff with plenty of days off to catch up on sleep
• Clearly communicate how plugged in your team needs to be away from the office
• Schedule downtime between long shifts
• Don't spread your employees too thin
• Avoid sending employees on back-to-back business trips