Think about the last time you had a rough night. The next day probably felt like this:
Emails took twice as long to write.
You zoned out in the middle of a conversation.
That 3 p.m. meeting? A battle to stay awake.
This is why sleep belongs in the workplace wellbeing conversation. It is not about prying into employees’ sleep habits, but about recognizing the fact that when people are tired, their focus, mood and motivation dip – and that affects productivity, decision-making and results.
What Poor Sleep Looks Like at Work
Lack of sleep doesn’t always show up as someone nodding off. More often, it’s:
Snappy emails and short tempers.
Forgetting key details or missing deadlines.
“Presenteeism” – physically at work, mentally running on empty.
Extra coffee runs just to get through the afternoon.
Research showed that people in Asia tended to sleep for shorter durations and had lower sleep quality compared with those in Europe and North America(1). Poor sleep can lead to more mistakes, more sick days and lower engagement at work. It is also consistently linked with higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression and obesity – all of which raise long‑term claims and benefit costs. Chronic sleep restriction reduced focus, memory and emotional control, affecting customer service, leadership quality and team dynamics(2).
Effects of Sleep Deprivation in the U.S. • Over one-third of adults did not get enough sleep. |
Practical, Non‑Intrusive Support HR Can Offer
Rather than asking employees how many hours they sleep, try these four approaches:
The Bottom Line
Sleep isn’t about hitting 8 hours exactly, it’s about getting enough rest with good quality: falling asleep at a reasonable time, staying asleep with minimal awakenings, and waking up feeling refreshed and able to function well during the day.
Sleep is like a hidden performance tool: when people improve it even a little, everything else gets easier – focus, patience, decision‑making, creativity. HR doesn’t need to become a sleep clinic, but by talking about rest as openly as nutrition and exercise, you can help turn “just getting through the day” into “actually having energy for it.”
As part of LocktonThrive, we are focusing on sleep as a strategic lever to:
Support daily energy, engagement and performance
Reduce longer‑term health risks and claims exposure
Equip HR and managers to recognize when fatigue may signal deeper concerns
We’ve created a 7‑Day Individual Sleep Reset Toolkit (opens a new window) that helps employees test small, realistic changes – from light exposure and wake‑times to simple wind‑down routines and when to seek professional support.
If you’d like to explore how sleep could fit into your wellbeing strategy, please contact us at PeopleSolutions.Asia@lockton.com (opens a new window).
Footnote:
(1) Willoughby, A., Alikhani, I., Karsikas, M., Chua, X. Y., & Chee, M. W. L. 10 August 2023. Country Differences in Nocturnal Sleep Variability: Observations from a Large-Scale, Long-Term Sleep Wearable Study. Sleep Medicine, Volume 110.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945723003003 (opens a new window)
(2) Mohammad A Khan, & Hamdan Al-Jahdali. April 2023. The consequences of sleep deprivation on cognitive. Neurosciences Journal, 28(2).
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10155483/ (opens a new window)
