In The News | India

Don't disturb, our staff are taking a nap! For employee efficiency, firm allows siesta

By VISHAL KRISHNA, Indian Express

Bangalore, India - June 29: Now Bangalore's Corporates are not far away from pampering their employees like children in kindergarten. If it was working across dinner tables that spiced up work, then how about a 'siesta' to make things a bit lighter on the mental side. The 'sleep therapy' is a new concept that is being implemented to boost employee morale.

Continuous Computing Vice President Pradeep Malhotra told this paper that the idea emerged after studying the stress involved in travelling long distances to work.

"It's a concept that is new in the city. We tried the idea on a sample size of ten employees. We put them all in a conference room, with the lights switched off, and asked them to sleep for 45 minutes. After observing them for two months, we found their efficiency levels to be quite high," Pradeep said.

"The programme had our employees divided. But now they even bring their pillows. The programme works like this, after the lunch break at 1 p.m., all the lights in the office are switched off at 1:30 p.m. All of us sleep for forty minutes and we have termed this as a 'power-nap'."

"Being a product development company, we need people who are free of stress. The state of current traffic in the city and work load destroys employee efficiency. We need to maintain high standards and our clients want quality. The only way we can do that is to offer some value to our employees, who will then perform better."

He said: "Business may go up and down but we need to be pro-active about our employees."

Pradeep said that in order to address employee satisfaction of every working day, smiley placards had been provided.

"There are three kind of smileys, one a happy smiley, the second a flat faced one and the third, a gloomy eyed one. Every employee pins up these smileys everyday and the HR manager visits each station to address individual grievances," he said.

Mighty power nap

• Company generated revenues worth $70 mn last year.
• 45 minute 'power-nap' and smiley placards doing the trick.
• Idea emerges from bad Bangalore traffic and work pressure.
• Carpeted floors become beds and generate efficiency.

Indian Express Newspaper Article

Times Now TV MPEG Movie of Power Naps at Continuous Computing India

MPEG movie - 22 Megabytes