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“A PLACE OF burnout and exhaustion is not a productive place to work from.”
So speaks Arianna Huffington, preseident of the Huffington Post Media Group. It’s not the hours we spend at work, but how productive we are when we are there that should matter to companies, she tells Business Insider.
To that end, the Huffington Post has two ‘nap rooms’ where employees can beat the mid-afternoon slump with a 20-minute nap, waking refreshed and ready to dive into their tasks. The rooms are equipped with a day bed, dimmed lighting, candles and cushions to set the boundary between ‘office atmosphere’ and relaxation.
She says:
If somebody’s tired in the middle of the afternoon, it’s so much better to go have a 20-minute nap than to have a 15th cup of coffee or a cinnamon bun to get some energy to keep going.
via Business Insider/Youtube
Beware long naps though: Sleeping for longer than around 25 minutes can tip you into a deep sleep phase, from which you wake up groggy, not refreshed.
The idea of a nap room has taken off in some larger companies in the States, and at least one manufacturer has focused on creating ‘nap pods’ to create a space for employees to zone out. This product from MetroNaps – called the Energypod – has a privacy visor to protect nappers from exterior noise and light. (It also has a timed waking system so you don’t sleep too long.)
via Metronaps.com
What do you think? Are napping facilities a good idea for businesses?
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Companies should introduce the concept of lunches away from your desk, leaving work on time and not having to be connected when at home!
Also. Something that really eats into morale I’ve felt, and noticed, is the idea of keeping staff hanging around until 5.30 sharp, even when there is nothing to do at times.
For example I worked in jobs years ago – small businesses in particular,there were about 4 of us including the boss full time. Often we’d have the work finished for the day by about 4pm and so he’d say “right lads, one of you can stay behind and keep the place open til 5.30 for customers, and the rest head off home”.
So, we’d pick between us who stayed and who left. Other times when it was really busy during the summer months and Xmas, as a result, none of us had any problems staying on and doing overtime, weekends etc. It helped hugely with loyalty for the business owner. We felt a part of the business.
Other jobs I worked for large cooperations were the opposite. You had to stay until the exact minute, despite the fact there may have been nothing left to do at the end of the day – as a result we had no loyalty.
Completely agree with you Luke. Whats even worse then is when those big corporations that make you stay to bang on half 5 when its quiet expect you to stay an hour late when its busy and refuse to pay you overtime or let you go earlier another day to make up for staying late!
Agreed. Management speak and rhetoric doesn’t instill loyalty in the same way as an owner boss you get on with.
There are many advantages to working in small businesses, and disadvantages too of course, but overall I’d take a small business any day, provided the owner wasn’t a cnut on a personal level. There’s no comparison imho.
John people should be happy to have a job and should do whatever is required of them to keep that job. Employees must understand they are easily replaceable and act accordingly
Lads, I work in Qatar and deal with a Japanese company. It’s part of their custom that they sleep for an hour from 12-1pm. Not a tap of work done….feet up, shoes off. Quiet funny to see it!
I’m working in a Japanese junior high school and it’s no bother to have a 10-15 minute nap at your desk. The logic is that if you’re napping, you must be working pretty hard hehe!! otsukaresama deshita!
I’ve worked in high schools in Japan and currently junior high schools. I can vouch for this. It’s the done thing in Japan.
As a bonus, is there anything better than having a job where you don’t have to wear shoes!
Email servers should be on for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. Productivity would go through the roof.
I recently worked somewhere walking distance from home. I walked home at Lunch, had a lovely lie in bed for 25 minutes then walked back. Definitely improved the day as a whole. I agree no amount of coffee or comfy chairs is gonna beat that :D. Would need privacy too, seperate nap cubicles please.
Lol – spot on with the nap, it does work well. But, I can’t see any way that large corporations would ever agree, research or no research, the mentality is getting worse if anything. Instead of tuning out for 15 minutes snooze, it’s becoming more of a ‘clock in clock out’ scenario and that does nothing for people.
The concept of napping and power naps or anything else is becoming less likely, not more likely. And that’s why articles like this will be scoffed at, rather than implemented.
Sometimes it would just be the best the grab some shut eye rather than slump through 4hours of work half assing your job.
I often found there was a lull in everyone at about 3pm in the afternoon.
We’ve been hearing about this since the 1980′s. ‘Power naps’ as they were known. The only difference in 30 years that I can see in this article compared to one decades ago, is the time has shifted from 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
That said, a good many years ago when I was working the 9 to 5 at lunch time 1.30 I’d often slip out a crash in the van for 15 – 20 minutes myself – and yes, it worked more often than not, I’d feel refreshed.
The trick is not to let yourself go into a deep sleep or you’ll wake up, or be woken up, in foul humour and much more tired.
Kimi Riakkonen is proof this works. He is regularly found sleeping before races. As a truck driver that has his work time regulated & is forced to sleep when we are not tired I feel that governments should also let its workers sleep when they wish &work when they wish. We would all be better off health wise if it was our sleep that was legislated for & not our work.
Theres a bloke who “WORKS” for my local County Council road repair division.Everytime you pass where they are “WORKING” hes asleep in the back of the crewcab lorry.How was he repayed for all his hard work.His superiors made him Foreman……
Only in Ireland ….
Tis a great little Country….
Sometimes I turn up for work and sleep for the day. Waking briefly for lunch zz z zzz zzzzz zz
Just put your jumper over your head and sleep. If someone comes in and wakes you,pretend you are taking it off.
I worked in Holland some years ago and we started really early in the morning to have flowers ready for auction. We always had a snooze during the day especially during the heat of summer and I never seem to remember being tired. Went back to work in the afternoon and into the evening meant every Friday finish at 12 noon. I lived only 25 mins cycle from Amsterdam centre. Life was never as good.
What have we become…. Hold me tight, make me feel wanted and loved..
Where I work everyone takes a nap from 14.00 to 15.00. I do it myself but maybe only once a week. I doubt it makes me work any better but im far less tired when I get home.
Complete culture difference on display here. It’s a done thing in some countries
I usually nip upstairs to a disused office and grab a 15 minute nap at lunchtime. Does me the power of good. I agree with the article though, if I lie for 20 minutes or longer I just wake up groggy rather than refreshed.
Zzzzzzzzzzz
Laughable nonsense sleep on your off time you have plenty if it. Some people think they deserve thanks for working at all.
There’s a case, for sure, for having more work-life balance (whether it be napping etc.) and some anecdotes here illustrate the benefits of respites. However, most employers would not think outside the box to reinvent work and make workers more productive.
I’ve worked from home and found this particularly useful, I’m not sure it works for everybody because I can see how some are the type that can easily go to sleep almost on command, but others aren’t. But for the former it works.
The 51% saying that people should just get on with it are clueless.
People I work with have no problem sleeping on the job .I work nights one person has been asleep over 4 hours and then tells me I should wake them ..lazy f……
Feeling very sleepy… Zz zzz zzz z
Quick run will have you feeling even more refreshed ready to power through afternoon.
Company does need to invest in shower facilities though
have your say