Continuing education

Sleep as Safety: Reduce the Risk of Workplace Impairment Caused by Poor Sleep

Wednesday, December 03, 2025
2 p.m. ET

Sleep is incredibly important to occupational safety, injury recovery, and overall health. Yet with physical, psychological, and social factors all at play, it can be a challenge to address the complexities that may limit a worker’s ability to obtain the amount of quality sleep they need to be healthy, alert, and safe.

Physical conditions associated with non-restorative sleep include obstructive sleep apnea, chronic pain, diabetes, impaired immune functioning, cardiovascular disease, and arrhythmias. Psychological and behavioral factors include PTSD, stressors related to the work or home environment, and mood disorders such as depression and loneliness. And physical and psychological conditions can also work together; for example, the vicious cycle that may develop between pain, depression, and insomnia.

Inadequate sleep in the workforce is a concern for all employers. However, it is an especially critical issue for organizations with employees in safety-sensitive roles, such as transportation and heavy equipment operation. Medical and industry research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has helped to inspire national initiatives aimed at improving public safety and health. Based on this and other research, strict limits have been placed on working hours in certain industries to help ensure an appropriately rested workforce. Yet, despite a continued emphasis on research and public awareness, inadequate sleep can threaten the health and safety of both the workforce and consumers.  

Sleep deprivation and exhaustion can lead to decreased focus, impaired judgment, and slower reaction times. As attention to detail decreases, work quality suffers and the potential for errors and poor decision-making increases. And even if an employee is able to keep up with their work tasks, ongoing fatigue from chronically poor sleep can lead to burnout, causing the employee to take more sick days and possibly leave the company altogether. Replacing fatigued workers due to burnout also leads to increased hiring and training costs.

With so much at stake, what can be done? In this presentation, our experts will discuss the complex issues, associated costs, and safety hazards related to inadequate sleep, as well as how fatigue can be detected and measured in the workforce. They will then turn to practical approaches for helping workers find the “off switch” — the personalized intervention and education that can help them achieve the sleep they need to recover, stay healthy, and perform at their best. These approaches include careful evaluation to avoid medications that impair sleep and encourage ones that promote sleep, smart devices that monitor sleep through the night or attentiveness on the job, and sleep hygiene therapy as a form of cognitive behavioral therapy.

The speakers will also address the importance of encouraging workers to take personal responsibility for getting the sleep they need, through good sleep hygiene and other healthy practices. This is an important aspect of promoting restful sleep and works in conjunction with medication and behavioral therapies.

With positive encouragement and case studies that illustrate both the discovery of potential issues and related successes, attendees will be equipped to apply these practical solutions to their own worker populations.