Dr Employer: Getting the best out of early birds & night owls

Find that some employees are dependent on caffeine all morning to suppress their yawns, whilst others are just a little bit too chirpy at 9am?

All humans have an internal body clock, a natural process that governs levels of energy and alertness throughout the day. This circadian process influences every individual, and disruption to the rhythm has a clear effect – resulting in employees finding their most productive hour on opposite sides of the clock.

“Much research has been done on the topic, but little of that knowledge has filtered through to the business world,” says Richard Morris, UK CEO at Regus. “Put very simply, the average employee will take a few hours after arriving at work to reach a peak of alertness and energy at around noon. This peak then subsides, declining after lunch until around 3pm. After this low, alertness tends to increase again until a second peak at 6pm. Then, it’s a steady decline until the ultimate low at 3.30am.”

Morris explains to us how businesses should adapt to get the best from their workforce. He says to consider the typical working day; “The notion of the nine-to-five working day was established in Victorian times, not an age one equates with worker welfare, and it is easy to see the conflict between this fixed structure and the modern science of productivity rhythms.