A Place for the Power Nap

By Francine Russo

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.

Napping has had the hardest time gaining traction, despite the scientific evidence in its favor. A study by NASA found, for example, that a 26-minute nap increased pilots' performance 34%. "What other management strategy will improve people's performance 34% in 26 minutes?" asks Mark Rosekind, president of Alertness Solutions, a fatigue-management consultancy, and the former NASA scientist who conducted the research. Yet most businesses still reject public napping. According to a survey by William Anthony, a Boston University professor of rehabilitation counseling who created National Napping Day, 70% of respondents who sleep at work do so secretly, often curled up in the backseat of their car at lunch.

Where nap facilities are provided, sleep experts say, most employers offer them mainly as a perk to retain workers; the productivity and health benefits are often an afterthought. In the offices of Kaye/Bassman, a corporate headhunting firm in Dallas, a spiffy new relaxation room features $4,500 massage chairs, headphones and a four-way dimmer for the lights. CEO Jeff Kaye says he installed the room primarily as a fun reward for his employees, but he also sees the benefits for productivity. "After a stressful negotiation, people need to unplug," he says.

MetroNaps, a company that pioneered the concept of selling naps in sleep environments, is seeing the change in corporate attitudes firsthand. The New York City-- based company opened its first sleep-pod center in 2004 in the Empire State Building, a place where workers could pay $14 and discreetly tuck in to one of the pod-shaped, hooded recliners for a midday nap and recharge for 20 minutes. The company is expanding the concept with franchises -- the first one opened in New York City's financial district in March -- but MetroNaps co-founder Arshad Chowdhury says he is discovering a new line of business in pods for office use. As he scouted for franchises, he kept getting requests for individual pods that companies could use on-site. To meet the demand, MetroNaps redesigned the pods to fit through doorways and will take orders from July for the new office models.

Chowdhury's first client, the ad agency Arc Worldwide in London, leased two pods from MetroNaps after using them in a commercial. "We researched naps, and I think they really do contribute to better idea generation," says Andrew Card, Arc's president. Hannah Roberts, a communications manager at Arc, heads for the sleep pods behind the reception desk whenever she gets hit by a bout of afternoon lethargy and creative block. If she is lucky enough to find one empty, she leans back in the recliner, pulls down the visor, puts on noise-canceling earphones and drifts. Fifteen minutes later, the chair gently vibrates and brings her upright, block removed. "I would use them every day, but I have to share them with 450 other people," she says.

Is napping the new coffee break? Sleep experts say that day is getting closer for farsighted businesses. "I'm seeing a surge in bosses' saying, 'I want to bring this into my business,'" says Sara Mednick, a sleep researcher at the Salk Institute. "Usually the boss is a napper."