At some businesses around the globe, you'll find employees sleeping on the job right under their boss's nose. There's little fear of a reprimand: The boss is probably taking a snooze, too.
With an increasing realization that we are a largely sleep-deprived society and that "power-napping" in the afternoon can increase employees' productivity, nap rooms are reportedly becoming more and more common in some countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada.
But decreased productivity in the workplace is just one of the social and economic drawbacks of fatigue. "The cost of fatigue is huge, both economically and socially," said Dr. Hiroshi Ito, a specialist on sleep disorders. For instance, the chance of traffic accidents increases five to 10 times when an insomniac is behind the wheel, he adds.
Indeed, the economic burden of sleep-related traffic accidents on the U.S. government is said to be around $46 billion a year. The British Sleep Foundation reports that between 20 and 25 percent of major road accidents on Britain's roads are caused by drivers falling asleep at the wheel, costing the nation around $12 billion a year.
The National Sleep Foundation estimates that decreased productivity, industrial accidents, and vehicle and plane crashes cost the U.S. economy around $100 billion a year.
High-profile accidents such as the Challenger space shuttle crash and the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear disasters have been attributed, in part at least, to worker fatigue.
"Taking a nap at work could save developed nations a lot of money -- and lives," Ito said.