WHEN employees work may be more important than WHERE

To make the most of our new world of work, it's critical that benefits pros understand how sleep rhythms contribute to performance.

Your chronotype, or specific circadian rhythms, define your individual levels of alertness, activity, concentration, creativity, decision making and more. (Image: David Palmer/ALM)

The world of work is changing in fundamentally different ways since the COVID19 pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March of 2020. The pandemic has accelerated changes already taking place and catalyzed new changes. Many of these changes are captured under the umbrella of the “future of work.”

Benefit professionals working in their own firms or embedded in other organizations are at the forefront of many of theses changes, such as expanding health networks for an ever-increasing remote workforce who moved since the pandemic but still work at the same organization. This mobile, remote workforce are also being induced by small cities even offering them cash to relocate to these small cities now called “Zoom towns” in a Wall Street Journal article, “How Remote Work is Reshaping America’s Urban Geography.” To date, 5 million workers have moved with a forecast of another 19 million given the flexibility of remote work, according to an article appearing in Business Insider.

Related: Quality sleep: Why employers must support this pillar of a ‘new normal’

In this new world of work and the emerging future of work with hybrid becoming more of the rule rather than the exception, it is critical that benefits professionals understand and appreciate the role of chronotype (biological clock) and time of day to enhance performance, health and wellbeing. This information will benefit you personally and professionally as well as your organization and your clients whether internal or external.

What’s the secret sauce?

The aim here is to focus on how to acquire and maintain a performance edge at work without sacrificing your short- and long-term health and wellbeing. This is particularly important now that more workers are working remotely and as workplaces embrace hybrid work as the norm rather than as the alternative. The “secret sauce” to achieving this performance edge revolves around your chronotype or your internal scheduler. Specifically, the “magic ingredient” of the secret sauce is to synchronize your chronotype with both your work schedule and work tasks.

What’s your chronotype?

Three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering the clock gene which governs your circadian rhythm. Your chronotype is genetically determined. Your chronotype is not a preference nor your personality. There are three chronotypes:

Your chronotype, or specific circadian rhythms (biological clock), define your individual levels of alertness, activity, concentration, creativity, decision making, energy, ethical decision making, interpersonal savvy, problem-solving, and pre-determined sleep schedule. It dictates your body’s natural tendency to fall asleep and wake up at a certain time of the day.

Are your work schedule and tasks synchronized with your chronotype?

There are three steps to acquiring and maintain the performance edge as shown below:

  1. Know your chronotype.
  2. Reflect on whether you, any work colleagues, or clients are suffering from circadian misalignment (working against not with your biological clock).
  3. Design your work schedule and work tasks around your genetically determined chronotype.

Know your chronotype: You may have a feel for your chronotype – morning type, intermediate, or evening type. A quick way to know your chronotype is to complete the following two questions.

Reflect on the effects of circadian misalignment: Circadian misalignment occurs when you are working against your own chronotype. For instance, you may be an evening chronotype, but you work a 9-5 job which makes it tough to get going in the morning and tough to go to sleep early knowing you have to get up an unnatural time for your chronotype.

Pause and reflect for at least 15-30 minutes knowing that there are 1,400 minutes in each day to ask and answer the following questions:

After reflecting upon these three questions, you may reach one of the three conclusions about the degree to which you are suffering from circadian misalignment.

Circadian misalignment is corrosive to your performance, health and wellbeing. Imagine you are continuously paddling upstream for more than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month, and 2080 hours a year.

Design a chronotype-friendly work schedule/work tasks

Hopefully the case has been made that circadian misalignment disrupts high performance, health and wellbeing. In contrast, synchronizing your work schedule and work tasks enhances high performance, health and wellbeing. This synchronization of work schedules and work tasks with the chronotypes of the workforce plays out on three levels: organizational, managerial/leadership and individual.

Each one of these will be described below all with the aim of offering your practical guidance on how to start synchronizing today.

Organizational level

At this level, executive leadership ought to commit to high performance, health and wellbeing by modeling synchronization, incorporating synchronization into policies, and creating a chronotype friendly climate. Such a climate signals that workplace flexibility revolves around life commitments, family commitments, volunteer commitments, commuting considerations, and health commitments but also a commitment to synchronizing work schedules and work task with the chronotypes of your workforce.

Managerial/leadership level

A key question for managers/leaders to ask of those workers who they supervise is the following: Can I and will I trust my workers to manage their time and productivity in a way that allows them to choose the hours that synchronize with their body clock? This may not be possible for every worker all the time because there are business considerations. Such considerations may include the job description and customer preferences with regard to time. In the 1950s, Douglas McGregor categorized managers/leaders as Theory Y or Theory X. This categorization is applicable today as shown in the table below.

As you read and reflect upon Theory Y and Theory X, are you more similar to Theory Y or X? What about your immediate supervisor? What about the cultural climate of your organization?

Individual level

At this level, you may not be able to control your work schedule at all or to the degree that you wish. If you are fortunate enough to work in a supportive organization with a performance-focused manager/leader and the nature of your job enables you to synchronize your work schedule and work tasks, then get going today. On the other hand, if you are not as fortunate due to the organizational culture and/or beliefs about workers held your immediate supervisor, then try the following ways to influence your immediate supervisor.

The current world of work and the emerging Future of Work is reshaping what works looks like and how it ought to be designed. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation represent two opportunities for organizational leaders and individual workers to pause, reflect and redesign how they work and WHEN they work. Synchronize your work schedule and work tasks with you chronotype to enhance your performance, health and wellbeing.

William “Marty” Martin is director and associate professor of the Health Sector Management MBA Program at DePaul University in Chicago, as well as a highly sought-after presenter, trainer, and facilitator at organizations in the U.S. and abroad. His topics range from Managing Physician Performance to Elements of Teamwork. 

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