Author Professor Vicki Culpin, of Ashridge Executive Education, says tackling sleep deprivation is key to improving productivity, employee wellbeing and effectiveness and calls on organisations to make it a priority.
In the book she describes how never before have significant percentages of working adults been so sleep deprived. Nearly half of the UK and US adult populations are not getting enough sleep, which is having a staggering impact on organisational life.
It is affecting employees’ ability to focus, make good decisions and build relationships at work, as well as having a devastating impact on health.
Memory – Getting more sleep aids memory performance. Memory is not just critical for organisational success (turning up late to meetings, failing to recall critical sales figures or missing a deadline) but is fundamental to an individual’s core identity.
Decision-making – Even a single night of total sleep deprivation can have dramatic effects on decision making. People are more likely to be side-lined by irrelevant trivia, lose track of what has been said and become more distrustful.
Creativity – tired minds generate tired ideas. Both quantity and quality of sleep are important for all aspects of the creative process.
Health – Small changes in sleep duration or sleep efficiency, over just a few nights, can lead to health related changes such as increased blood pressure, appetite regulation imbalances and susceptibility to infection.
Mood – Negative mood is one of the most frequently cited effects of both short term and chronic sleep problems. In recent research conducted by Professor Culpin, the most frequently reported effect of lack of sleep was ‘feeling irritable’, followed by ‘feeling more stressed’, and wanting to be ‘left alone.’
Says Professor Culpin: “Managers and HR professionals must take note. At a time when leaders and employees are operating in rapidly changing environments with no ‘blueprint’ of how to do things, this issue needs to be taken seriously.”
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-business-of-sleep-9781472936578/
For further information or content for World Sleep Day (16th March), contact Erika Lucas, [email protected], 01442 841218
