Did you stay up too late to watch Game of Thrones?  Perhaps you simply stayed up late to finish a project for work.  In either case, if you did and lost just a mere 16 minutes of sleep a new study suggests that the sleep deficit likely negatively impacted your job performance and quality of life.

The study, published in Sleep Health, studied 130 middle-aged employees in Information Technology.  Over the course of eight consecutive days, participants in the study self-reported the frequency of experiencing off-task and distracting thoughts during the day and their specific sleep characteristics during that period including bedtimes, wake times, sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep latency (the length of time it takes to fall asleep).  The result showed that that waking 19 minutes earlier and sleeping 16 minutes less were associated with significantly greater cognitive interference the next day.

According to the lead author of the study, Soomi Lee, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the School of Aging Studies, the research, “provide[s] empirical evidence for why workplaces need to make more efforts to promote their employees’ sleep. Good sleepers may be better performers at work due to greater ability to stay focused an on-task with fewer errors and interpersonal conflicts.”

What’s the impact for Human Resource professionals?  There is a definite shift towards a broader view of the health and wellness of employees.  This new approach takes a more holistic view of the person rather than simply focusing on physical health.  The sleep study highlights a truth that we likely intuitively already know, sleep matters.  Job stress can be a contributing factor to poor sleep which results in poor job performance, and worse, greater health issues.

What can we do as HR professionals?  In a previous EPTW article we highlighted the approach one organization took to encourage its employees to get more sleep.  This involved providing financial rewards for employees who adopted better sleep habits.  While that might be an extreme approach, the concept of encouraging and providing tools for employees to improve their sleep habits likely has merit given the results of this study.

Those interested in learning more about the science around employee well-being are encouraged to attend the upcoming Compensation and Benefits Conference where Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will be presenting a session entitled, Moving Beyond Wellness: How Well-Being Enhances the Health and Productivity of Employees.  Register here.

Sources:  sciencedirect.com, humanresourcesonline.net