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Sleep Deprivation - The Silent Thief in Business
In today's high-performance work life, from fast-growing tech companies to heavy industries, "few hours of sleep" can be seen as a status symbol of working harder. But from a medical and economic perspective, chronic sleep deprivation is one of the biggest risk factors for reduced performance and poor decision-making among your employees.
Why Do Your Employees Suffer from Sleep Deprivation?
The reasons for sleep deprivation can often be divided into three categories where you as an employer have a direct influence on two of them:
Work-related stress: High mental load without sufficient recovery increases the risk of ruminating thoughts, making it harder to unwind and take longer to fall asleep.
Lifestyle and biology: Screen time, late habits, or underlying medical conditions like sleep apnea.
Shift work and irregular hours: A challenge in production and logistics where the circadian rhythm is disrupted, requiring statutory medical checks according to the Swedish Work Environment Authority (AFS 2019:3).
How Can You Measure and Identify Sleep Deprivation?
As an employer, it can feel difficult to "control" employees' sleep. However, it’s not about surveillance, but about offering tools for self-insight and medical validation.
Health Check: By offering employees a health check with blood tests, we can see signs of chronic stress, such as cortisol levels and deficiency diseases that affect fatigue, including iron, B12, or thyroid function.
Health Profiles: Structured questionnaires as part of Systematic Work Environment Management (SAM) to identify patterns in the workforce.
Leadership Training: Learn as an employer to see signs of irritation, reduced concentration, and a lower stress threshold in your employees.
Strategic Measures - How to Help Employees?
Solving sleep deprivation requires a combination of both culture and medical support:
Offer Health Checks: By performing a health check, the employee gets objective data on their own health status. This can de-dramatize the problem and provide concrete answers to the employee's own concerns.
Clear Frameworks for Recovery: Create common guidelines regarding availability after work hours, meeting times, and digital load. Recovery needs to be a structural prerequisite, not an individual project.
Cognitive Support: In case of confirmed sleep deprivation, you as an employer can offer support in the form of CBT-sleep or adjustments of work tasks for a period.
By positioning the health check as a benefit rather than a control, you build a culture of commitment and loyalty. Employees who feel their health is prioritized stay longer and perform better.
