Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

IF YOU’VE EVER secretly napped at work, here’s something that might absolve any lingering guilt: you’re definitely not alone. A survey of around 1,000 remote and hybrid workers by Amerisleep found that 48 per cent admitted to catching an average of an hour and twenty minutes of napping per week.

“Napping has become a quiet norm for many remote workers, blending rest into the rhythm of the workday,” Amerisleep’s report said. “Even leaders are split, with some encouraging naps and others still seeing them as unprofessional.”

In its survey results, managers were marginally more likely to nap than their subordinates. Those in marketing and finance topped the list of nap-happy sectors, with 59 per cent of people in those fields saying they napped. Gen Z is the generation more likely to nap (which won’t be helping their image as the lazy generation much).

One in five say they put fake calendar events up to make themselves look busy ― and one in ten said they’ve been caught. When the nappers were asked what they would give up in exchange for the right to nap, most said they would trade a day of PTO for napping rights.

Napping is probably more widespread than the report indicates — you have to factor in how many people might have fibbed a little when responding to a survey, and remote and hybrid work, obviously, moves it behind closed doors.

Slate’s Ask a Manager advice columnist Alison Green wrote recently that she’s seen all sorts of questions over the years related to napping at work. Mostly it’s stories of people finding creative ways to sneak away for a few minutes (and often getting caught in the process), but she said she’s received many stories of napping going awry in the remote work era, too. “One guy had his camera on and was working from his bedroom. His wife came into the bedroom and flopped on the bed for a nap,” reads one story. “A couple minutes later, he got up from his chair, crawled into bed and started napping with [her.]”

When Amerisleep shared their survey results, they described this as time being “wasted.” But many scientists in the room would likely disagree and side with those bosses who turn a blind eye. A 2015 study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences supported napping as a productivity booster. Nappers were more able to tolerate frustrating tasks and were less likely to make impulsive decisions than non-nappers. And a 2006 study found that nurses granted 40 minutes to nap were better at inserting IVs, made fewer mistakes and “reported more vigour” than non-nappers.

“Obviously you don’t want people snoring through meetings,” wrote Green. “But there’s no point in having employees struggle through a workday exhausted if a short power nap means they’ll return to work with increased accuracy and productivity.” 

POLICY

The Motherhood Penalty: Why we’re losing some of our best talent to caregiving

“This is systemic, and it is bad.” A new study sheds light on the connection between motherhood and job loss

A NEW STUDY by Moms at Work, conducted by law firm Hudson Sinclair and with input from Western University sociologist Rachel Margolis, found that one in seven Canadian mothers was laid off, terminated or not had their contract renewed during their maternity leave between 2022 and 2023.

It’s a finding that experts say matches the experiences they’re hearing from women in the workplace and represents a major part of the puzzle surrounding why women are leaving the workplace and experiencing lower career mobility.

“Maternity leave and the years surrounding it represent the single largest point in which women off-ramp from corporate organizations,” stated the report from Moms at Work. “The ‘Motherhood Penalty’ continues to widen the gender wage gap, reduce workforce participation and limit women’s leadership opportunities, undermining gender equity and economic growth.”

Moms at Work attempted to sketch out what this means for the entire Canadian workforce. By their calculations, it suggested that as many as 25,000 women per year are losing work in Canada during their maternity leave, a layoff rate that is three times the general average. Another 25 per cent said that they were denied promotions. Forty per cent considered quitting when they went back.

This is a finding that may sound familiar to a lot of women in the corporate world ― whether it’s something they’ve experienced themselves or seen done to colleagues.

“Companies would say things like, ‘We really want someone who is all-in at work,’” Moms at Work founder Allison Venditti told The Globe and Mail. “These are women who are talented, committed, all of those things, and they dared to have a baby ― the thing that society is screaming at you to do. This is systemic, and it is bad.”

The Moms at Work survey argued for several policy changes it believes would help the problem. Tax credits and federal incentives to top up maternity leave would improve protections, it suggested. It also wants the government to top up the wage replacement rate from 55 per cent (under current EI rules) to 80 per cent, to reduce the cost burden of top-ups on employers.

These are arguments that will be music to the ears of those who want to see more done to promote birthrates in Canada; the Macdonald-Laurier Institute recently made a similar recommendation to “improve income replacement schemes under EI.”

“Mothers are being laid off, denied opportunity and left unsupported during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives,” said Venditti. “The good news is that we can fix it.” 

CULTURE

The epidemic of oversharing

It’s good to feel free to talk about personal things at work, but have things gone too far?

THERE IS, NATURALLY, a limit on how much you need to know about your coworkers, and it seems that many office workers may be reaching that point ― particularly their younger, talkative, very over-sharing coworkers.

A comprehensive Business Insider piece looked at the state of workplace openness. Yes, it begins, people are encouraged to “bring their whole selves” to work, a correction for decades of telling people to compartmentalize their home lives. Or an overcorrection, some might say.

“It can also be a little much,” wrote Emily Stewart. “Oversharing at work is on overdrive. While Gen Z may be the biggest culprit, there’s no age limit on spilling a few too many beans.”

The piece catalogues all sorts of odd, oversharey behaviours in the workplace, and even some defences of the practice from oversharers themselves, like one tech worker who argued that oversharing “may make me a little bit unprofessional sometimes, but I think it’s all about context and building upon the relationships that you already have.”

But it does seem to make the case that honesty in the workplace is swinging too far, and that some people yearn for a bit more of a buttoned-up environment. On that front, it’s another data point that suggests post-lockdown office dynamics are changing, and in some cases stepping back from the holistic wellness office culture of the 2010s, for better or worse.

“There’s something about fussing over these seemingly superficial details that feels inherently retrograde and anathema to the ambition and passion that is supposed to animate work in our era,” wrote Carrie Battan in New York magazine. “For years, the casual workplace has been synonymous with the reasonable workplace. And to question that feels somehow mean or stodgy. But we’ve clearly become too comfortable with our colleagues.”

Consider it the case for being just a bit more distant from your colleagues. “At work, we’re all in this together, like it or not,” Stewart concludes. “Everyone will survive if we’re too familiar with one another, but it may be a bit better if we all scale back just a smidge.” 

TECHNOLOGY

IRL rebalance

Turns out even the most plugged-in generation is ready to unplug

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