Flexible work schedules may be HR’s key to helping staff avoid suffering from ‘social jetlag’, with medical research suggesting that a traditional 9-to-5 working day could be causing as much disruption as air travel and turning office colleagues into zombies.
Sluggishness, disorientation and sleep deprivation are among some of the symptoms associated with the condition termed by researcher Till Roenneberg, PhD, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University of Munich, who says it is caused when the human body clock gets out of sync with its environment.
Whilst sitting in an office with artificial lighting may be one factor fuelling the zombie crisis, working long hours during weekdays topped with busy weekends can leave colleagues lacking energy and reaching for snacks and stimulants such as coffee and cigarettes to keep them going.
According to John Henderson, CFO, APAC, Regus, however, the best way to stamp out the scourge of social jetlag is to adopt a more flexible approach to working. He suggests that organisations should rethink the concept of ‘office hours’ as well as the concept of 'the office' itself and commented, “Why make everyone trek in to the same physical offices miles from his or her home, when adopting a flexible workspace model could shave minutes or hours from a person’s commute, both improving productivity and enhancing work life balance.”
Assigning work tasks for optimal performance times and scheduling meetings based on employee sleep patterns could be another solution that HR could adopt to prevent social jetlag from impacting the performance and productivity of colleague in the workplace and keeping office zombies at bay.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
