Thought Leadership in Action

In today’s world, many workers are worn down and some completely wiped out due to inadequate rest and sleep. Make sure your workplace wellness program addresses this issue or you may find that employees aren’t the only ones drained. It’s estimated that lack of sleep costs U.S. companies $63 billion in lost productivity each year.

If Your Team Is Too Tired, It Could Mean Trouble For Everyone

Nearly seven in 10 U.S. workers said they work while tired, with nearly one-third (31%) saying they do so very often, according to this 2016 survey. Survey respondents indicated their drowsiness led to:

• Being easily distracted (52%)
• Procrastinating more (47%)
• Being grumpy (38%)
• Making more mistakes (29%)

Some of the admitted big-ticket blunders included:

• Making a $20,000 mistake on a purchase order.
• Deleting a project that took 1,000 hours to complete.
• Missing a decimal point on an estimated payment and the client overpaying by $1 million.
• Accidentally paying everyone twice.
• Ordering 500 more computers than were needed.

To help promote rest and sleep among employees, you may want to consider:

• Providing communications on the importance of sleep and what people can do to get healthy sleep. (The Hope Health Library has a large selection of ready-to-use articles on the topic. Check it out here.)
• Designating a nap room where employees can take a 20-minute power snooze.
• Mindfully managing workloads. If the workload is too much, consider bringing in temporary help to see a project through.
• Encouraging team members to take breaks to recharge.
• Consider making changes such as flexible schedules or telecommuting (even if it’s not a full-time arrangement, maybe one or two days a week).

Check out the Hope Health Library, which has numerous articles on sleep. All articles are medically reviewed and ready-to-use in your newsletters, copy for posters, or quick tips in an email or on social media sites.

As a part of Ebix Health, Hope Health specializes in producing health, wellness and business communications with breakthrough power for your employee and community populations. If you’re interested in corporate wellness solutions tools, contact us today!