Going Back to Basics Blog series. Blog #1

How to Multiply Workforce productivity in 5-20 minutes a day.

August 18th 2018 | Julia Becerra

Every so often I read in the WSJ, NY Times and in other publications, articles about how to improve productivity and company results through employee engagement and development.  Most of the articles portrayed different strategies to get the most #productivity out of their workforce, including making the employee feel valued and providing them with growing opportunities, but not many of those programs seemed to go back to the basics of productivity.  A rested mind and body.

After many years of going in different directions and testing similar venues to achieve that productivity goal, companies are slowly realizing that the answer to it, may date back to about 500 B.C. if not earlier. A time were the nap was recorded by historian as a human necessity to increase productivity and creativity.

So, I was not surprised when I heard that a couple of new places have been added in Manhattan to supply the increasing demand for a napping place in the city that never sleeps.

These venues, where people pay to rest or sleep, are expressions of a “culture shift” where employers and employees are recognizing that taking a nap, or a quiet break (not necessarily sleeping) is much efficient and has a more lasting result than what could be obtained through caffeine alone or a sugar rush. In fact, companies have been taking the initiative of renting spaces in some of the “napping” places for their employees to take advantage of. Other companies have “recharging rooms” or “quiet rooms”. For example, at Google’s New York offices, nap pods are scattered throughout, and at WeWork’s Manhattan headquarters, there is a room dedicated to “wellness” and “quiet,” though not specifically to napping. Most workplaces, however, have not incorporated such zones in their floor plans or in their strategies to improve employee well-being and productivity.

A lot of studies have been done in the subject of the benefits of napping, and I am not talking about the health benefits which are many, but to what matters  most to an organization: the productivity, the good return of the investment made in the labor force.

For example, A study conducted by researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel showed daytime nappers doing better at retaining a newly mastered skill than a control group whose members slept only at night. Experiments conducted by Matthew A. Tucker of Harvard Medical School suggest that a nap can enhance the ability to perform tasks relying upon memory. Regardless of these and other studies,  it has taken a lot of time for management to go beyond the cultural perception of napping, which range from laziness to selfishness with a few exceptions of seeing it as beneficial, typical, day activity.  In the United States we are only beginning to understand that sleep is a critical aspect of a healthy and productive life.

Prioritizing sleep is necessary to achieve optimal productivity and well-being.   Implementing a daily time off lasting from 5 to 20 minutes could potentially improve productivity up to 50%. It is like adding another half a day of productivity to a work day.  But in a corporate culture of not leaving your desk even to have lunch, this concept may take time to be understood and embraced by the traditional companies.

Of course this  by no means is something to be practiced by everybody, as each person has a different way to recharge the body and the mind.  The idea is to acknowledge a break as a necessary productivity tool.  It could be just taking a few minutes to close the  eyes and rest the mind, do some relaxing breathing, listen to calm music or just do nothing and stay still for 5-10 minutes.

It does not mean either that everybody stops doing whatever they are doing at a particular time and forcefully take a break (although something like this is done in some European and Latin countries). No, the effectiveness of this “innovative” approach is to allow the workforce to identify that moment when the need of a downtime  arises, embrace it shamelessly and proceed to take the 5-10 min daily recharge – either by taking a nap, or taking a moment of quietness, a walk, etc -without fears of any stigma and without the “guilty” feeling that such a break may bring.

I believe that corporations across the country could improve their return on their workforce investment and improve #employee success by going back to one of the most basic human needs, a break to rest, to sleep.   And it seems that I am not the only one that thinks that way, since in Manhattan alone, there are now at least four napping places used among others by employees of a lot of companies.(NapYork, YeloSpa, Mountak Salt Cave, Dreamery are the most known  napping places).

Regardless all the benefits of napping, stress reduction, improved ability to remember things, alertness improvement, boosting the effects of caffeine, etc. , I personally haven’t been ever good at napping, but I do appreciate a restorative couple of minutes to close my eyes and listen to my own breathing, or simply get up from my chair and take a walk around the floor.

And you?  What do you think? what does work for you? And do you take a no-guilt break at work?

 

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