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To nap or not to nap

Snoozing at work a good thing, experts say

October 31st, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
The Deloitte consulting firm's comfy office in Prague 8 promotes rest and relaxation.
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Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
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Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
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The open-space offices of the Deloitte consulting firm in Prague 8 have this homey feel to them. The soft, grayish-beige carpet swallows up sounds of mouse clicks and keyboard taps. Scattered about are a few cushioned, egg-shaped seats. There’s also a dinning table for 20, a TV and pool table. But perhaps the company’s most coveted office attraction is their multitudes of comfy-
looking couches, an office perk put in place to encourage work-day napping, officials here say.   
“We’ve tried to incorporate as many home-interior elements,” explains Barbora Červenková, a member of the realization team responsible for creating the Deloitte office in the city’s Nile House. When relocating Deloitte from its tight office space near Old Town Square in 2005, Červenková envisioned something a bit more airy but functional enough to work in on the weekends or well into the night, as sometimes is the case, which is why, she says, she made sure to add a lot of couches for employees to snooze on.
Deloitte is one of the few businesses in Prague that advocates napping on the job. While such a concept is openly embraced in other countries — Japan has “napping salons,” Spain has “siesta” hour and several firms in the United States and Canada support “resting rooms” — it has still not completely caught on here, though advocates hope this will gradually change.   
This wasn’t always the case.
“Resting spaces are nothing new under the sun,” notes Pavel Kuchař, a sociologist with the Institute of Social Studies at Charles University. “Already at Baťa [manufacturing plants] there were resting corners and every firm had these beginning [in] the ’20s and ’30s.”
Known as the “red corners” during socialism, employees could rest, eat their lunch, and chat, because a reasonable manager knows that a rested employee is a productive employee, Kuchař says. Whether resting facilities are provided depends on the nature of the job — for instance, flexible working hours for Deloitte’s employees at the Nile House — and on how “enlightened” management is about work environment, according to Kuchař.
Both Červenková and Kuchař agree that a lot of employers in the Czech Republic seem skeptical of mid-day naps.
Many employers feel their staff already gets plenty of down time during the work day, Kuchař adds, noting that it is estimated that the average employee only spends about 85 percent of their working hours doing actual work.  
“There have been experiments to create a nine-and-half-hour working days instead of an eight-and-half ones, making the 15 minute break into an hour-long one,” Kuchař explains. “But employees themselves stood up against this and said, ‘No, we want to get our job over with and go home.’”
Czechs may be willing to get to work early, Kuchař adds, but they also want to finish early, and stretching things out for a nap is silly to them.
But, according to sleep experts, businesses that encourage 15 to 25 minute “power naps” are only helping themselves in the long run. Higher productivity and increased alertness are virtually guaranteed, they say, as long as employees don’t snooze past 30 minutes, when deep sleep sets in and leaves a person lethargic upon waking.
On the other hand, Lucie Závěšická, a doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic in Prague, doesn’t think regular mid-day naps are all that beneficial.
“I think it’s suitable to rest after lunch, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a nap,” she explains. Závěšická points out that a person’s energy level fluctuates about every 90 minutes, but a person truly regenerate during deep-sleep phases, not short naps.
“The need for an afternoon nap is highly individual,” Závěšická adds.
Napping isn’t recommended for those suffering from chronic insomnia and those with inhibited night’s sleep as both conditions could be made worse, according to Závěšická. So, while daily snoozing may have worked well for the more famous of nappers, like Winston Churchill and Napoleon Bonaparte, it is obviously not for everyone.
Still, Kuchař notes, “If the nature of the job is demanding, if the job asks for high qualifications, specific knowledge and skill, and if there are only a few people that can do the job, and the firm wants to keep them, the employer will create the necessary conditions.”
These days, those conditions might mean a place for employees to kick back and relax during the work day.  
Deloitte’s Nile House space, for example, is the only one of the consulting firm’s four office locations in Prague that provides such comfort for their employees. It’s here that the firm’s treasured consulting professionals work, Červenková says. To keep its “gold,” Deloitte’s ultra-comfy interiors are seen as a fringe benefit, a touch that sets the company apart from competing firms.  
Martina Cermáková


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