How better sleep for employees is great for business

Sleep is often overlooked as a factor in employee wellbeing, and it’s an issue that can be challenging for employers to get to the root of. What if there was a solution to help improve sleep quality in the workforce, in turn improving productivity? We believe the SleepHub® device is such a solution.

SleepHub®’s scientifically developed sleep sound technology can help many different people, including those dealing with shift work, anxiety and life’s disruptions, to get the good night’s sleep they need every night, for optimal physical and mental function.

In a clinical study, 92% of participants reported that the SleepHub® device positively influenced their sleep:

• How long they slept: Increase in the number of hours slept: 2 hours 35 minutes
• How long they stayed awake: 1 hour 16 minutes less
• How often they woke up during the night: 55% decrease in the number of times woken up.

These exciting findings highlight the role SleepHub® can play in improving sleep in the workforce, benefiting business by supporting employee wellbeing and their productivity. Since the economic downturn of 2008, the UK economy has struggled to sustain a period of labour productivity growth. SleepHub® could well be the game-changer.

The impact poor sleep has on productivity

According to a 2016 study by RAND Europe, the UK loses just over 200,000 working days a year due to sleep deprivation among its workforce and costs the economy up to £40 billion a year. Sleeplessness is clearly a contributing factory in the UK’s declining productivity.

Perhaps most importantly good sleep is vital to mitigate against the heath and safety risks for workers who operate heavy machinery or spend long periods controlling vehicles, such as salespeople, goods drivers, pilots and public transport drivers.

Companies who rely on shift workers or employees that work unsociable hours could be suffering from poor wellbeing and dwindling productivity within the workforce. Irregular working patterns require irregular sleeping patterns which can be detrimental to good quality sleep and satisfactory volumes of sleep.

Looking at the statistics: Three in four workers in the UK suffer from persistent sleep problems according to a report by Loughborough University. Worryingly, the study also found more than half (54%) of workers are unable to stay awake during the day. Alarmingly, a quarter of respondents admit their sleep problems prevent them from completing tasks and impact the speed and quality of their work. The study also found UK workers take on average two sick days a year to catch up on sleep.

For HR or wellbeing managers, the figures are cause for concern. Wellbeing has risen to the top of the HR agenda in recent years, but too often sleep is not considered in any strategies. Yet it’s clear that sleep health is important, not just in ensuring workers have a good quality of life but also ensuring the business doesn’t suffer.

Restoring wellbeing and productivity with better sleep

It’s well documented that good sleep can improve cognitive functions, such as decision making. In an article published by CNBC, Jeff Bezos, founder and Executive Chairman of Amazon, prioritises getting 8 hours of good sleep and believes it’s the key to boosting productivity and making high-quality decisions. Bezos also says mornings are much better for decision making - "Anything that's going to be really mentally challenging is a 10 a.m. meeting. Because by 5 p.m., I'm like, 'I can't think more about this issue today. Let's try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m’.”

So what can be done to restore workforce wellbeing through improved sleep, and win businesses back the time and money that low productivity costs them year after year?

Work-related stress, relationship problems, money worries, raising young children, living in a noisy neighbourhood – there are plenty of common causes of poor sleep. However, diagnosing the sleep issues of each individual worker is an impossible task. Most businesses simply don’t have the time or resources.

Some companies have gone as far as creating nap rooms or designated napping spaces for workers’ to get some restorative rest during the working day, but again, not every business will have the budget for this workplace perk.

Members of the workforce can benefit from introducing a sleep aid such as SleepHub®  easily into their sleep routine as a means to improving the quality of their sleep.

By making sleep tech devices such as SleepHub® available to their workers, employers can offer sleep aids to purchase at a preferential price with affordable payment options, loan devices to employees who are suffering from sleep issues, or those dedicated spaces available in the workplace where devices can be used for power naps.

As part of a new partnership initiative in April 2021, SleepHub® is being made available to thousands of employees through My Benefits World via its online employee benefits solution.  

How SleepHub® can help improve quality of sleep

The variable nature of shift work, nightly disruptions, and anxiety causes the brain to effectively forget how to enter it’s natural sleep cycles. However, after years of research, testing and development, our specialists at Cambridge Sleep Sciences have uncovered how sound can be used to re-train the brain to revert to those natural sleep cycles.

While many products on the market use sound to mask noises that distract people from falling asleep, SleepHub® uses scientifically formulated sounds to guide you through the correct sleep cycles in the correct order. Beats and pulses simulate the waves your brain should experience as it initiates natural sleep - think of it as a guide-track for minds that can no longer get to sleep easily or experience good quality sleep.

The four sleeping modes of SleepHub®

Backed by 10+ years of research and development, SleepHub® features four modes, each designed to help those who find it difficult to get to sleep as well as those who struggle to experience good quality sleep, from deep nightly sleeps to naps of varying lengths.

1. Deep Sleep mode can help you get a full eight hours of restful, natural sleep by activating the mode when you get in bed. So, even if the start time of your job changes regularly, SleepHub® can still help you achieve the natural sleep you need through repeated nightly or daily use.

2. Easy Sleep mode: If your busy work schedule means you have less than eight hours to sleep each night, you can use the SleepHub® Easy Sleep mode which customises the Deep Sleep cycle to however many hours you can allow for a restful sleep.

3. Fall Asleep mode: For those who have trouble falling asleep but stay asleep when they do, the two hour Fall Asleep mode helps you get into your cycles of natural sleep.

4. Power Nap mode: For the moments when you have a little downtime, there’s the SleepHub® Power Nap mode which guides you into a nap for a duration of 30, 45 or 60 minutes.

Using the SleepHub® can help to restore your natural sleep patterns, making a big difference in productivity and quality of life. And many workers know first-hand just how beneficial a good night’s sleep is when facing a busy work day!