Napping is one of the most effective alertness strategies shift workers can employ. Yet this is a very contentious issue both among employees and managers. The prevailing view is that you’re being paid to work and not sleep and as long as you are at your job, you should be awake. Yet every shift work employee can attest to sleeping while at work and most managers either know or have found employees sleeping while at work. In some workplaces, this results in dismissal or at least discipline of the employee.

What goes on in many organizations is “random napping,” that is, employees who are extremely fatigued or who cannot overcome the strong physiological need to sleep, will simply fall asleep at their station or find a quiet spot where they can get a nap without anyone knowing. This presents several problems, not the least of which is that they may injure themselves and others. Certainly productivity suffers.

Some organizations, however, have recognized the pitfalls of random napping and have instituted “controlled napping” instead. They have done this because they understand the value of napping in increasing employee alertness and productivity and decreasing the potential for errors and accidents. They have taken a proactive stance and determined how they can incorporate napping in an appropriate way.

Controlled napping procedures usually require that:

-the nap be no longer than 20 minutes

-the nap be taken at a designated nap area away from the work station (this can simply be a recliner or something as sophisticated as the Japanese sleeping rooms)

-only one nap per shift be taken

-the employee inform a designated person of their need for a nap

-the employee ensure that someone is covering their station

These policies and procedures ensure that employees don’t sleep randomly and that work and other employees are not jeopardized. Yet the employee can return to their station more alert and able to carry on with their work.

Though most shiftworkers are focused on getting sleep, time and resources are being expended on how to keep people awake and perhaps even forgo sleep completely.

Obviously, being alert at work and while driving is critical. Fatigue and lapses in alertness greatly increase the risk of errors and accidents and these exact a huge cost in accidents and medical care. Workers, therefore, are encouraged to get quality sleep in sufficient quantities to ensure that they remain alert and safe.

In some occupations, however, the need to be alert extends beyond the usual 8 or 12 hours of a shift. International and military pilots fall into this category. Unusual efforts are made in these instances to ensure that they maintain alertness and in the case of US military pilots, amphetamine use has been endorsed. Currently, the US military is also experimenting with the possibility of staying awake for a week at a time. This is an effort to entirely overcome the body’s need for sleep and the restorative effects it offers.

Is it possible that shiftworkers in more ordinary circumstances will be required to undertake the same extraordinary measures to maintain alertness? Perhaps not yet. We have not yet been able to overcome our need for sleep, as was shown by the soldiers in the Iraqi war who were subjected to long periods of sleep deprivation and who resorted to random napping to compensate. However, for the first time a drug has been approved in the United States for use in overcoming sleepiness associated with shift work sleep disorder.

This measure indicates that we are focusing our interventions away from finding the sources of the sleepiness and providing strategies to promote sleep. Instead, we are implementing strategies that simply overcome the sleepiness. Most shift workers are familiar with strategies for maintaining short term alertness, but is it advisable, in the long term, to maintain alertness through these methods? Or should getting enough sleep still be the best answer for ensuring alertness?

The standard employment contract used to offer ‘permanent, full-time’ work with a segment of the workforce working part-time. More recently, another category of employment has become more common. This category is generally referred to as ‘flexible’ work hours, though other terms like ‘casual,’ ‘irregular,’ ‘on-call’ and ‘overtime’ refer to similar arrangements. Those who are working a flexible schedule may be working less than full-time hours, the same as full-time or, in many cases, more than full-time hours.

A flexible work schedule can be determined by the employee and may include job sharing and shift trading. On the other hand, a flexible work schedule can be determined by the employer, and in this instance, employees are required to work as determined by the employer and have little or no control over their work schedule. This practise has become much more common as organizations attempt to control their labour costs. However, the consequences for employees who are subject to employer-based flexibility can be severe.

A review of data in Europe found that “longer and ‘irregular’ working hours are in general linked to lower levels of health and well-being; moreover, low (individual) flexibility and high variability of working hours (i.e. company-based flexibility) were consistently associated with poor health and well-being, while low variability combined with high autonomy showed positive effects.” The report further states that “individual flexibility alleviates the negative effects of the company-based flexibility on subjective health, safety and social well-being.”

If you would like to know if your shift work schedule meets ‘best practice’ criteria, call us about providing a Schedule Clinic.