Dive Brief:
- Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini promoted a culture of sufficient employee sleep for improved business productivity during an interview Tuesday on CNBC's Squawk Box.
- Bertolini argued better sleep means bigger profits because it allows employees to be "present in the workplace" and make better decisions.
- Bertolini implemented a program last year that actually pays employees to get more sleep.
Dive Insight:
An incentive could indeed be necessary to spur people to get the seven to eight hours of sleep per night recommended by the National Institutes of Health.
In a 2010 sleep survey by McKinsey 47% of the 196 respondents reported business cultures expect too much responsiveness to emails and phone calls, and 43% reported not getting sufficient sleep at least four nights per week.
The deal at Aetna is employees can prove the amount they sleep, such as with a Fitbit, and once they reach a minimum of seven hours of sleep per night for 20 nights in a row, they earn $25 a night, with a cap of $500 per year.
According to Bertolini, since investing in employee wellness, including sleep, worker productivity has risen 69 minutes per a month.
"If we can make … business fundamentals better by investing in our people, then that's going to show up in our revenue," Bertolini told CNBC.