With 510 franchises in the U.S. and abroad, Le Gourmet Gift Basket in Castle Rock, Colo., is the model of an always-on global business. Employees arrive early--5 a.m. isn't unusual--to deal with clients in other time zones. They have all honed their techniques for avoiding jet lag and fatigue as they travel from the Colorado office to other U.S. locations, like Hawaii, or to Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia to meet with vendors and train new franchisees who sell the company's high-end gift baskets. But that isn't enough for CEO Cynthia McKay. She believes that good sleep means good business, and she has made it part of her company's workplace culture. In one of two designated sleep areas in Le Gourmet's offices, employees can nap for 15 or 30 minutes on a foldout couch or single cot. If the alarm clock doesn't rouse them, McKay will, to make sure they're getting the short naps she thinks will do the most for productivity. "I consider my staff irreplaceable," she says, "and I want to keep them off the road if they are not at their best."
McKay is part of a small but growing movement in corporate America to address the consequences of a nation of sleep-deprived workers. Longer commutes, midnight e-mails and a global economy that requires work over many time zones have made a solid eight hours of sleep as rare as a three-martini lunch. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation costs U.S. business more than $100 billion a year in lost productivity and damage to workers' health and safety. An estimated 80,000 drivers a day, for example, doze off while behind the wheel. And supporting those exhausted legions creates even more of them. "People expect to pull in at Starbucks at 5 a.m. to get coffee," says Dr. Charles Czeisler of Harvard's Brigham & Women's Hospital. "But the one who prepares it is setting up at 4 a.m."
Clearly, the problem demands a solution, but business is just starting to grapple with it. Sleep experts say that more and more employers, aware of the hits they take to health, safety and productivity because of sleep deficits, are taking action. ComPsych, the nation's largest provider of employee-assistance programs, reports that requests for its stress-reduction and sleep-improvement training series, which includes stretching, breathing exercises and developing restful presleep routines, jumped 89% from 2004 to 2005. Some of its clients offer programs that include lunch-hour yoga and Tai Chi to aid relaxation and improve sleep patterns. "After nutrition and exercise," says ComPsych CEO Richard Chaifetz, "we've seen a heightened focus on sleep."
Sleep experts say screening for disorders like sleep apnea is also on the rise. As much as 10% of the population suffers from the problem, and most people don't even know they have it, says Dr. Gary Richardson of the Henry Ford Medical Center. Screening for a sleep disorder takes little more than a 15- to 20-minute questionnaire, and increasingly businesses understand that treating such problems improves workers' health and reduces health- care costs.