Poor sleep is more than a personal wellness issue—it can affect employees’ focus, productivity, safety, and overall well-being. In fact, a recent survey indicated 33% of Canadian employees felt poor sleep quality has been negatively affecting their work.1
Unfortunately, sleep issues and their effects are becoming increasingly common. However, employers have a unique opportunity to support their employees and promote healthier sleep habits. Here’s more information on sleep hygiene, what affects sleep quality for employees, as well as what employers can do to support sleep health in their employees, including the role of group benefits.
What is sleep hygiene?
According to the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines, adults aged 18 to 64 should be getting seven to nine hours of quality sleep regularly.2 The key to achieving this is by maintaining good sleep hygiene – the daily habits and environmental factors that help support consistent, high-quality sleep.
Good sleep hygiene includes the following:
- Maintaining consistent sleep and wake times
- Creating a healthy sleep environment, such as keeping the bedroom cool, dark, and quiet
- Reducing caffeine intake later in the day
- Limiting screen use at least one hour before bed
These habits help support the body’s circadian rhythm, which is the internal process that regulates an individual’s sleep-wake cycle and repeats approximately every 24 hours. Not following these habits can send mixed signals to the body. The result is a disrupted circadian rhythm, which can make high-quality sleep difficult to achieve and affect energy, mood, and focus, along with overall health.
What affects employee sleep quality
Many employees struggle to get enough quality sleep, especially when work demands, stress, screen time, or irregular schedules interfere with rest. While employers cannot control everything that affects their employees’ sleep quality, having a better understanding of the common barriers to restful sleep is a great place to start.
- Workload pressures: High workloads, long hours, and tight deadlines can keep the body and mind alert when they should be winding down.
- Lifestyle habits: Physical activity and balanced nutrition can support better sleep, while heavy meals, lack of exercise, and caffeine late in the day may make it harder to fall or stay asleep.
- Evening screen use: Phones, computers, and televisions can delay the body’s natural wind-down process, often due to blue light exposure.
- Irregular schedules: Night shifts, rotating shifts, and inconsistent start times can disrupt an individual’s circadian rhythm and make it difficult to maintain regular sleep and wake times.
- Health conditions and medications: Some health conditions, both physical and mental, as well as certain medications can interfere with sleep quality.
How poor sleep impacts employees and organizations
Poor sleep can do more than leave employees tired the next day, especially when the issue is prolonged. When poor sleep causes prolonged fatigue, it’s harder to concentrate, think clearly, and remain engaged. At work, this can result in the following issues:
- Reduced productivity and performance
- Increased stress and mental health issues
- Higher risk of chronic health conditions
- Burnout
- Reduced engagement in company culture
Recognizing the signs of fatigue and supporting better sleep habits can help protect employee well-being while simultaneously strengthening work performance, safety, and resilience.
How to leverage group benefits for sleep health
Supporting healthy sleep as part of workplace wellness can make employees more likely to seek help early and use the resources available to them. This starts by leveraging the tools employers already have in place:
- Communicate available group benefits: Regularly remind employees about available group benefits, such as EAPs, virtual care, counselling, and wellness resources. Use email, internal message boards, onboarding materials, and company-wide meetings to explain what is available and how to access it.
- Simplify access to resources: Group benefits are most effective when employees can easily find and use them. Make access as simple as possible by centralizing information, using plain language, and providing clear next steps so employees know where to go for support.
Practical ways employers can support better sleep
However, actively supporting sleep health for employees doesn’t stop there. Here are some additional strategies employers should consider:
- Build awareness of sleep health: Use campaigns, training resources, or wellness communications to help employees understand healthy sleep habits, recognize signs of fatigue, and feel more comfortable discussing sleep challenges without judgment.
- Connect sleep to overall health: Sleep challenges often overlap with stress, anxiety, and physical health concerns. Positioning sleep as part of a broader wellness strategy reinforces its role in overall employee health.
- Encourage healthy workplace norms: Leaders can help normalize healthy sleep habits by modelling appropriate work-life boundaries, minimizing unnecessary after-hours expectations, and encouraging employees to prioritize rest as part of overall well-being.
- Improve the work environment: Invest in ergonomic office equipment, offer quiet meeting rooms, improve office lighting, and make other workplace adjustments to reduce fatigue and support alertness during work hours.
- Promote healthy habits: Employers should encourage physical activity and balanced nutrition in their employees. This can include forming lunchtime walking groups, step challenges, and even offering a variety of healthy snack options in the office.
By combining these strategies, employers can help employees protect their rest and bring more focus, energy, and resilience to work.
Next steps to support employee sleep health
Sleep hygiene is a key part of employee wellness and organizational performance. By making sleep health part of workplace culture and benefits communication, employers can help employees feel more supported, focused, and resilient. They will see increased performance, stronger morale, fewer absences, and even reduced healthcare costs as a result.
Ready to strengthen how you support employee sleep health at your company? Connect with a Cowan Benefits Ltd.® consultant and we’ll help you identify practical next steps as well as a group benefits plan to fit your organization.
