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Jan 26, 2005

Short Sleep Solution

Uttam Manohar Nakate slept thrice on the job therefore Bharat Forge sacked him. The High Court upheld his right to snooze and awarded him damages. But the Supreme Court has decided to uphold Bharat Forge's decision though. So now those who wanted to take a nap at office can't threathen their HR with court proceedings. Some tell me that the matter can be reviewed if there is a PIL or through support from Parliament etc. While those wheels are set in motion, some ideas for sneaking a nap at work.

1.Sunglasses.
Well you can claim eye infection for 1 week or better claim sunglasses at work reduce the glare and increase productivity

2.On the phone
Glue a dummy phone to your ear and no one will notice the nod. Er dont snore though.

3.Files
Especially if you work in a government office. Simply pile up the files on the table and you have a wall to guarantee your privacy.

4.Naive Boss
Circulate a rumour that you get visions if you sleep during the day. And mention you had a morning dream about the boss. Later tell the boss, his family takes advantage of him, never understands or appreciates him enough etc.

5.Meeting
Fix a meeting and escape while you can..

6.Concentration
Say your productivity increases when you concentrate with eyes closed. Dont forget to hold a pen, as though you would write down your thoughts any minute.

7.Competition
Circulate a rumour that the competitor is doing well because of a 1 hour compulsory siesta. (Coroborate with colleagues in competitor's company.)

8.Blackmail
Mess up a colleague's job and say it happens when you don't get good sleep(not frequently please)

9.Emotional Blackmail
Mention you worked the whole night over a file you took home yesterday

10. If nothing works, circulate about (MY) Short Sleep Solution
Another research group in USA has confirmed the importance of small doses of sleep at work. Unlike earlier groups which dealt mainly with sample data, this study was coordinated by a group from a reputed university and the in-house Human Tesources Team of a Fortune 500 company.

Reliable sources within the company have confirmed the overall improvement in productivity and profits over the years. But the company is not willing to go public at this juncture, since it seems to fear that its competitors might start enforcing this practise too. The practise, which was started in one branch office nearly 12 years ago, extended slowly throughout the organisation.

Now it has become mandatory for employees to sleep atleast for a few minutes at work.
Suprisingly even the employees were reluctant to implement this concept and many faked the sleep and were uncomfortable with the concept. But within few months there was a stark difference between those who slept and those who didnt and gradually all the employees and managers have been forced to agree due to the consistency of the results.

When asked, how the break in the work load was handled, the managers point out that it is impossible for any employee to concentrate the entire period on the task. Earlier they used to resort to gossip,surf the net,smoke or just drink infinite cups of coffees. But while gossip affects team performance and net surfing distracts the employees, and smoking, coffee etc have medical side effects, and indirectly add to the stress, sleep doesnt. The employees maintain that now going for a short nap break has become as natural as a coffee break and obviously more beneficial.

To queries on whether alarm clocks have been placed on all the tables, the spokesperson laughed and mentioned that while sleep was mandatory, the employees used their discretion and ultimately were accountable to the deadlines and tasks.
The short sleeps at work policy has also resulted in increasing the employee loyalty. An employee of the organisation, after being assured of confidentiality, admitted that, even though he received better offers from other organisations, he was not inclined to quit the organisation, since he felt he wouldnt have functioned at the optimal level if he had not had the short doses of sleep. And felt that by implementing the policy the organisation had sent out a strong message that "It Cared".

Origin
Though many research groups are claiming credit, like many management techniques, this technique too seems to have its origin in the Oriental. Many Japanese & Korean corporates have also been practising this for some decades.

How does it work.
Even the cynics of Applied Industrial Psychology agree that stress can hamper employees productivity and sleep is an easy stress buster. Though some managers wondered if there would be a fall in output, the managers were startled when they realised that there was minimal employee absence due to medical reasons. And a short nap not only seems to calm the employee but seems to endow the person with better decision making ability and work concentration.

Scientists who have recorded the brain wave patterns of these employees point out that a brain works best after the short nap and are able to record the brainwaves and prove their point by assigning various tasks to the employee. Amazingly not just blue collar job performance, but even white collar job performance has improved. The technique also seems to be without race or gender or other bias. After all, isnt sleep universal.

In short, the new age management mantra for Success is Short Sleep Solution .

7 comments:

  1. Hey i m goin to work to take a nap... :))

    ReplyDelete
  2. "gaya"

    Send it to all the workplaces as well as all the B-Schools .. so that future HR managers apply this to their New offices

    LOL

    PS :

    On a serious note it has been proved that even a 10 min nap can improve ur productivity like hell :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. mausmi :D

    amita, cool idea:)

    absolute freedom, now if everyone takes 300 minutes nap, they could come with 3000 ideas for the company (well everyone isnt churchill so the idea-sleep ratio isnt proportional)

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice one! interesting read?

    btw your comments on "Sita" blog post at Times "Melodrama" were not something I would agree with, ofcoures true love demands the loss of self respect, dignity and everything in between.

    Let the lover be selfless, pityful, fool and idiot, someone more sober will take care of the rest of the world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. notyouok thanks:)

    on the sita comment, how many people stay in abusive relationships thinking love is worth the loss of self respect..
    love is supposed to help u growth together, not stamp you out..
    but to each one their view on love..

    ReplyDelete
  6. I respect your viewpoint, but I am still firm on my stand... love despite loss of self-respect, dignity and everything in between. By commenting again I am just trying to convey that ANOTHER viewpoint also exists, and you should broaden your THINKING horizon...

    "'Tis better to have loved and lost
    Than never to have loved at all."
    — Alfred Lord Tennyson (In Memoriam)

    "What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul"
    — Victor Hugo

    The last one resonates in my heart, read it again and you will understand what I mean to be love and lost everything and be a A VERY POOR YOUNG IN LOVE.

    ReplyDelete
  7. well lets agree to disagree then :)
    love is a wonderful emotion, even if its not reciprocated..and when its reciprocated, its like double sunshine..but unfortunately many times, those in love, differ on how to express love..

    ReplyDelete

Have a Great Day!