Poor sleep has influences on employees' health and well-being, which can negatively affect an employer's bottom line. In fact, sleep deprivation increases the chances of workplace injuries by 70%
This is partially due to tired workers being less able to concentrate on workplace safety guidelines.
Employers can take easy, low-cost steps to make sure that their workers have the capability(能力) to sleep well and reduce the chances of workplace injuries.
Our approach focuses on improving supervisor (主管) support for employees' sleep. The majority of workplace training relies on employees to deal with their own sleep health. This is problematic, because many employees face challenges of improving their own sleep without outside support and education.
In February 2019, we published a study looking at the influence of a supervisor support training intervention(介入) on employees' sleep. Fifty-six study groups, made up of 791 employees in a Fortune 500 information technology firm, participated in the study.
Half of the study groups attended in-person group meetings to identify new ways to increase control over their own work schedules. The supervisors and managers in those same groups received additional in-person family-supportive supervisor training to improve their support for employees' family and non-work lives, and to promote the work-family balance.
Workers reported their time asleep, how rested they felt upon waking, and any inability they had to fall asleep. They also wore sleep tracking watches to measure their actual time spent sleeping each day. This study did not actually include a sleep training part. It focused solely on providing employees with more control over where and when they work. Besides, it taught their supervisors and managers to reduce demands, and better support employees' work-family balance.
We found that improving supervisors' support for employees' work-life balance can benefit employees' sleep in sustainable (可持续的) ways. In our study, both sleep quantity increased up to 18 months after the training. This study highlighted that an organization can keep supporting workers' work, family, health and well-being which can result in employees' reduced stress and improved sleep and job performance.
