Effect of Sleep on Productivity
Sleep deprivation robs your employees of the opportunity to excel at work. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies reports that people struggling with sleep are less productive overall. Ongoing sleep deprivation downgrades productivity to its lowest common denominator: minimum functioning.
Without sleep, your workers are less able to concentrate, less able to act definitively, less able to collaborate, and less able to engage in higher mental cognition activities such as memory and sensitive social engagement with colleagues and clients. Projects that could be accomplished in three or four steps might take 10 or 12 because without highly engaged cognition, employees are less able to apply critical thinking, problem solving, and creative vision skills.
Sleep deprivation turns the volume way, way down when it comes to innovation, efficiency, and genuine engagement. But your employees aren’t the only ones losing out. The whole company suffers.
$60 Billion
estimated lost by US companies
due to lower productivity
caused by poor sleep
Sleep and Productivity
Remember the last time you suffered a sleepless night? Unfortunately, characteristics associated with sleep deprivation – feeling tired, fatigued, groggy, cranky, unable to concentrate, or impatient for the chance to get back to bed – don’t get checked at the employee entrance.
Sadly, insomnia is linked with both depression and anxiety. When your employees experience insomnia, they are 10 times likelier to experience depression and anxiety. Tired, depressed, and anxious? Not the most productive frame of mind.
Sleep Deprivation Impacts Productivity
No matter how you measure it, sleep deprivation costs companies serious money in lost productivity. U.S. companies lose an estimated $60 billion due to lower productivity caused by poor sleep.
Your employees work slower and less effectively without sleep. Productivity losses associated with fatigue are estimated to cost $1,967 per employee annually. Additionally, presenteeism associated with individuals struggling with insomnia is considered to be equivalent to 8 days of lost work performance per year.
8 days annually of work
performance lost
(presenteeism) for
employees with insomnia
Sleeping for less than 6 hours
per night leads to performance
deficits equal to 48 hours
without sleep
What is Sleep Deprivation Costing Your Company?
Because OSA sufferers must face the sleep deprivation and insomnia associated with their regularly disturbed sleep, workplace productivity is unfortunately negatively impacted. Financial analysts place the loss of OSA-related productivity at between $5 billion to $15 billion annually within the U.S.
We know that sleeping for fewer than six hours per night leads to performance deficits equal to 48 hours without sleep. And severe insomnia causes employees to miss work twice as often as good sleepers.