INTHEBLACK December 2021 - Magazine - Page 54
F E AT U R E
// S L E E P D E P R I VAT I O N
OPEN VIDEO IN A NEW WINDOW
SWITCH OFF FOR HEALTH
Deloitte has been among the workplaces driving the
change in attitude around sleep. In October last year,
Deloitte ran a campaign aiming to raise awareness
about the benefits of sleep by educating employees on
the importance of good sleep hygiene and encouraging
them to monitor their sleep patterns over the course of
a month.
Throughout the campaign staff were provided
with information on building good sleep habits, the
importance of sleep, the impact technology and other
behavioural and lifestyle factors have on sleep, and the
potential impacts of sleep on individual productivity.
Deloitte has also been encouraging other businesses
to treat sleep as a fundamental business issue, factoring
a good night’s rest into productivity incentives.
Corporates hoping to rehabilitate their “always on”
culture by throwing money behind the burgeoning
“corporate wellness” industry, with its sleeper pods
and corporate meditation rooms, already worth
A$61.6 million in Australia, will be disappointed.
The only way to combat sleep deprivation and
overwork is to work less and to physically switch
off at the end of each working day.
54 ITB December 2021
OTHER FINANCIAL
COSTS OF SLEEP
D E P R I VAT I O N
Aside from the costs
incurred for the treatment
of ill health due to sleep
deprivation, other
financial costs associated
with sleep disorders and
attributable conditions
were A$13.4 billion in
2019-2020. A breakdown
of some of these costs
is given below.
A$7.5 billion:
Presenteeism losses
A$2.2 billion:
Absenteeism losses
A$1 billion:
Reduced employment
A$0.3 billion:
Informal care costs
A$0.2 billion:
Premature mortality costs
Source: Sleep Health Foundation
This is particularly important with the advent of
remote and flexible working environments, where
technology and work intrude on our personal lives.
“Having this pressure to respond to work demands
outside of working hours makes it more difficult to
detach,” says Rebecca Mitchell, associate professor at
Macquarie University’s Department of Management.
“What organisations don’t understand is that, if they
want to get great work out of people and have them
stay long term, they have to allow them to detach from
work – to actually leave work, to limit the ‘tele-pressure’
– and to stop seeing sleep as being for ‘sissies’,” she says.
THE COST OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION
Deloitte, in partnership with the Sleep Health
Foundation, has estimated the direct and indirect
costs of sleep deprivation to be A$51 billion per year.
Jared Streatfeild, associate director of health
economics and social policy at Deloitte Access
Economics, says they arrived at the number using
the cost of illness framework.
“We use this framework to comprehensively measure
the cost of a particular condition, which we can then
compare to the impact of other health conditions and