How Sleep Affects Productivity at Work

It may come as no surprise that in our 24/7, globally-networked, digitally-enhanced working lives we have less time for sleep. But research from Ashridge Executive Education, showing that lack of sleep is a hidden threat to high performing corporate culture still comes as a wake-up call.

It is an irony of the modern world that advances in communication technology which we once thought would ease our working lives seem to have had the reverse effect. The day the postman was replaced by the fax machine our working lives sped-up. Today with almost universal instant communication around the globe the speed has accelerated and with it the pressure to perform to stay up with the competition. All of which is contributing to sleep deprivation becoming a characteristic of a professional’s working environment.

The researchers from Ashridge argue that there is an urgent need to challenge the growing corporate culture of sleeplessness; a problem they believe is often under-reported due to work related performance pressures.

A lack of sleep can have a detrimental effect on an individual’s health as well as their social and emotional well-being. In a work context the effect is on performance and this research found that some tasks were affected more than others and that there were variations across age groups.