Sleep and work: why sleep is an HR topic

One in three Dutch people has sleep problems, and more than four in ten structurally sleep too little. In a team of ten, that is three people on average. You rarely see it in absence figures, more often in concentration, patience and energy. Sleep and work influence each other. And that makes sleep an HR topic too. Not to interfere with people’s nights, but to organise the day well.

Work often plays a part

Of employees with sleep problems, 49% name work as the cause, as often as personal circumstances. The main reasons given are too much work and not being able to switch off. A meta-analysis of 152 studies shows that higher workload goes together with shorter and poorer sleep, and poor sleep with lower health and job satisfaction (Litwiller et al., 2017). Four characteristics of work are most clearly linked to sleep, and all four lie within the organisation’s influence:

• Workload. More work goes together with shorter and poorer sleep.
• Not switching off. People who mentally detach after work sleep better. Being available after working hours makes detaching harder.
• Working hours and night work. Night workers have sleep problems 1.5 to 2 times as often.
• Conflict and emotional work. They are linked to less detachment, and therefore to a more restless night.

What sleep does to work

After 17 to 19 hours without sleep, participants scored as poorly on some tests as with a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (Williamson and Feyer, 2000). If you get up at 7, you reach that point around midnight. And it applies to managers too: after a bad night they respond more dismissively to their team, and that team’s engagement drops with it (Barnes et al., 2015). Also read how to spot work stress earlier.

Where the employer’s role ends

Sleep is personal. An employer who interferes damages trust. An employer who organises work well actually helps. Up to the employer: realistic workload and planning, agreements on availability, healthy rosters, managers who lead by example and voluntary, confidential support. Not up to the employer: measuring sleep, linking sleep to performance reviews, or blaming the employee with “go to bed earlier”.
In 2016 the Dutch Data Protection Authority ruled that employers may not process health data from wearables, such as sleep patterns, not even with consent. In an employment relationship, that consent is rarely truly free.

What works?

• CBT-I through work has the strongest evidence: a meta-analysis of 12 studies with 827 employees shows around 20% less severe insomnia (Vega-Escaño et al., 2020).
• Control over working time combined with training for managers led people in a randomised study to sleep 8 minutes longer per night (Olson et al., 2015).
• Team agreements on availability are an obvious step, although they have rarely been tested on their own.
• Information on sleep hygiene alone is not enough as the only approach.

Start with availability

The quickest to notice: team agreements on email and apps after working hours. Agree together after what time you no longer send messages, how you can be reached in a real emergency and how you respect days off and part-time days. The manager is the first to stick to it.

Get started

The Workload module in Deepler Research measures working hours, recovery and mental load per team: anonymously, by generation or age group, without asking about anyone’s sleep. See also how an education organisation mapped workload per team.

Sources

• Kerkhof, G. (2017). Epidemiology of sleep and sleep disorders in The Netherlands. Sleep Medicine, 30, 229-239.
• Health Council of the Netherlands (2017). Gezondheidsrisico’s door nachtwerk (Health risks of night work). Advisory report 2017/17.
• Litwiller, B. et al. (2017). The relationship between sleep and work: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(4), 682-699.
• Barnes, C. et al. (2015). You wouldn’t like me when I’m sleepy. Academy of Management Journal, 58(5), 1419-1437.
• Vega-Escaño, J. et al. (2020). Insomnia interventions in the workplace: a systematic review and meta-analysis. IJERPH, 17(17), 6401.
• Dutch Data Protection Authority (2016). Ruling on the processing of health data from wearables by employers.