The Sleep Report

Last week I wrote about the three other reports every organization should consider publishing. I ended by saying that there are definitely more reports that organizations should publish and as I mulled over it, I couldn’t get an old Fast Company article titled ‘Why your company needs a sleep strategy’ out of my head. Given my recent obsessions with numbers, metrics and reports, here’s me making a case why every organization needs to publish a sleep report.

Closely related to burnout, any organization that can confidently say that their employees get an average of 7-8 hours of restful sleep per day will definitely grab my attention. For over ten years if not more, there have been studies that have questioned if sleep deprivation is the next global epidemic. There is sufficient research showing that the organizational cost of insufficient sleep is extremely high. One study estimates that U.S. companies lose $150 billion in productivity due to sleep apnea alone. 

And guess what’s one of the biggest stressors impacting sleep? Workplace stress.

Yet, proactive measures to address workplace stress to directly improve sleep quality continue to be elusive. It is time organizations look beyond the commonplace solutions of workplace wellness sessions that talk about the importance of sleep and how to get the requisite number of hours. While some workplaces also provide nap pods, tackling symptoms and not the cause isn’t a sustainable solution. What we need are policies that are designed to optimize sleep. Take for example, as mentioned in an article by McKinsey, a travel policy that encourages employees to take an earlier plane (rather than an overnight “red eye” flight) to get a good night’s sleep before an important meeting or quarterly mandatory work shut downs as followed by select financial institutions. We also need to change the narrative around sleep – no more stories glorifying sleepless nights spent solving problems; instead let’s talk about how a good night’s sleep helped clear the head and find a solution.

In short, I would love to see a report that clarifies how work is designed so as to allow employees to truly switch off when needed (without the need of a right to disconnect law). How much artificial urgency is baked into everyday work life and what proactive measures are being taken to address all root causes of insufficient sleep. Is travel across time-zones and jet lag the norm? If I work for the organization, how many lost hours of sleep should I account for?

One can argue that the burnout and sleep report can be used interchangeably. After all, both are two sides of the same coin i.e. workplace stress. A report that measures and addresses workplace stress should suffice. I would argue not. Just as the gender pay gap reports and pay transparency reports are two sides of the same coin and yet two separate reporting requirements; until we reach a stage where organizations around the world utilize standard reporting for workplace stress, we need reports on both – burnout and sleep. They may have the same cause, but we desperately need two distinct strategies to tackle the outcomes. Someday when workplace stress is no longer an issue, these reports will be redundant. Until then, would you dare ask your organization to publish a sleep report?