Time to take a nap in office

NEW DELHI: You have been working all night to meet your deadline and you are dead tired. To worsen things, you have an important meeting at nine. What do you do? Go home and catch some sleep? Time doesn���t permit. There is respite at hand, take a nap at the rest area or dorm in your office and regain some energy to get back to work.

As work pressures increase in a 24/7 world, companies are finding newer ways to increase the productivity of their employees. Be it the ITeS space, a consulting company, a design firm, or an advertising agency, companies are realising the need of allowing their employees proper breaks, which includes taking a nap at the workplace.

Globally, its a common practice, with consulting firms like Deloitte Consulting in America and Japanese firms having ���napnasiums��� for employees. It���s catching up in India. Some like Desmania Design, Edifice Architects, Prudential Process Management, GE Capital, Convergys and Leo Burnett have already adopted the practice in India.

Edifice Architects has comfort zones across its six offices where people can sleep, take a nap if they are over worked, or tired. They have sofa-cum-beds and shower areas for employees. Ravi Sarangan, director, Edifice Architects, says: ���Many of our clients too have rest areas or dormitories for the purpose. The list includes Prudential Process Management, GE Capital, Convergys and many more.��� Its Mumbai office is of 8,000 sq ft, with a 1000 sq ft devoted to the comfort zone. The area will be kept untouched even during expansion, according to Mr Sarangan.

Desmania Design plans to have a proper dorm in its new office space at Manesar over a 30,000-sq ft area. Says Desmania Design director Anuj Prasad: ���You can���t be creative if you are stressed out. You can come up with ideas only with a relaxed mind. We need spaces where you can take a nap, catch some sleep and relax.���

In the ITeS space, most of the BPOs either have rest areas or sliding sofas where one can read or lie down and relax. The upper part is a see through and it���s visible who is sleeping. If an employee is too tired, he can ask his team leader for an informal approval and take a nap for half an hour. This specially happens for the night shift employees. ���This is common in all the IT/ITeS firms, especially the national and international ones. When it���s a 24/7 work space, you can���t avoid it but encourage it to get higher productivity.���

Genpact HR V-P Piyush Mehta says: ���We have medical rooms where people can take rest and sleep if they are tired or sick.���

Leo Burnett India has an informal way to do it. Though it doesn���t have a proper dorm or formal rest rooms, there are gaddas, couches where people can lie down or take a nap if they want. Jayshree Sundar, president, north, Leo Burnett India, says: ���Breaks help when you have late nights and you are worked up.���

These instances will increase in future, says KPMG HR director Sumit Mathur: ���It���s a good idea and more and more companies will endorse the practice as we go global and companies serve clients across time zones. Till now, it was a western practice but is getting adopted by companies in India too.���